
Class __-Ji_LLA_§'. 
Book__.i±? 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 



SOUTH SEA 



BBB 



SILHOUETTES 



BY 

G, L. MORRILL 

C'GOLIGHTLY") 

PASTOR OP PEOPLE'S CHURCH, 
Minneapolis, Minn., U. S. A. 



LOWELL L. MORRILL, 
Illustrator and 
Photographer 



M. A. DONOHUE & CO. 
Chicago 






V 



Copyright, 1915, by 
G. L. MORRILL. 



QEC -7 1915 



BOOKS BY G. L. MORRILL 

TO HELL AND BACK— SOUTH AMERICA 

GOLIGHTLY 'ROUND THE GLOBE 

TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT 

PARSON'S PILGRIMAGE 

A MUSICAL MINISTER 

FIRESIDE FANCIES 

HERE AND THERE 

PEOPLE'S PULPIT 

EASTER ECHOES 

THE MORALIST 

UPPER CUTS 

DRIFTWOOD 

MUSINGS 




PROLOGUE 



I sailed to the South Seas to see about the only part 
of the world I had not already visited, and not because 
I was sick, sleepy or sentimental. As a "sky-pilot" I 
made the following travel "log." 

— G. L. MORRILL 



CONTENTS 



Page 

Dirty Weather 1 

Smugglers 3 

Dope 3 

Lepers 6 

The Sun's House 6 

On to the Volcano 7 

Hell on Earth 8 

A Joy- Ride 10 

A Wet Town 11 

Royal Fellows 12 

Mid-Pacific Carnival 14 

The Hula-Hula 16 

Friends 17 

Foes 17 

Heaven on Earth 18 

Sailing "Dark" 19 

Killing Time 20 

Fijians 21 

Sun-Baked Suva 22 

Cannibals 23 

Kava 24 

Hands Across the Sea 25 

Sight Seeing 25 

Up the Rewa River 26 

Native Towns 27 

Paddy Connor 28 

An Informal Call 29 

Savage Letters and Life 30 

Drumming Up a Crowd 31 

Church Services 32 

Sunday Observations 34 

Rubber Trees and Necks... 35 

Carnegie and Curs 37 

Dogs 37 

Clubs 38 

Boozers 38 

Mermaids 39 

Relics 40 

Facts 40 

Faith 41 

Women's Morals 41 

Cannibalism 42 

Bau 46 

Horrible Deaths 46 

Civilized Savages 48 

A Modern Miracle 48 



Page 

Rain and Reef 49 

A Close Call 51 

A "Meke" Dance 54 

Lovely Levuka 56 

"Tipperary" 57 

A Tongan Town 58 

Tapa 60 

Summer School 61 

Missionaries 61 

A Dead-Beat King 63 

Tongan Togs 65 

Royal Graves 67 

A Dandy Drill 67 

A Kava Party 68 

Native Music 70 

Curse 71 

This Is the Life 71 

Bats and Pigs 72 

Laka-Laka Dance 73 

Mormons 73 

Dodging Islands 74 

Big Chief Finau 74 

Happy Haapai 75 

A Ramshackle Palace 1^ 

Friendly Islanders 17 

House and Home TJ 

Chain of Events 78 

Swallow's Cave 79 

Cave-Dwellers 80 

Vauvau's Powwow 80 

Before the Storm 82 

Native Vaudeville 83 

In the Hurricane 84 

Wrecked 87 

Lost 88 

Cast Up 88 

A Desolate Island 89 

Tin Can Mail 90 

Swimming Ashore 90 

Niuafoou Notes 91 

Black Birders 92 

Tongan Traits 92 

A 48 Hour Day 94 

A Loving Enemy 95 

Apian Ways 96 

Fly Time and Text 97 



CONTENTS— (Continued.) 



Page 

"Road of Gratitude" 99 

A Funeral March 101 

Stevenson's Grave 102 

Vailima 104 

The Prose Poet 104 

All Suited 105 

Our American Consul 106 

Martial Law 107 

A Belgian Benefit 108 

A War Dance 109 

The Samoan Siva 109 

Loving Hands 110 

How They Worship Ill 

Open House 112 

Mats 113 

Tattooing 114 

Tofa Apia 114 

A Short History Lesson 115 

Present Pastimes 116 

Character and Characteris- 
tics 117 

Crater Cradles 118 

Suva Souvenirs 119 

Palm Sunday at Sea 120 

All About Auckland 124 

In the Bush 125 

Rotorua 127 

Merry Maoris 127 

In Hot Water 128 

Sold Again 129 

A Buried Village 129 

Firewater 130 

Too Bad 131 

Steam Heat 133 

The Lady of the Lake 133 

Troubled Waters 135 

Terra Infirma 137 

Ohinemutu 138 

Pooh-Pooh Pohutu! 138 

Impressions 140 

Rubbing Noses 140 

Letters 141 

Carvings and Canvas 141 

In Eden 143 

Easter Gambling 144 

Pilgrim's Progress 145 

Dumb Belles 146 

Cold Comfort 148 

A Holy Terror 148 

A City on Wheels 149 

Stranger Than Fiction 150 

Bluff Oysters 151 



Page 

Christchurch 151 

Pelorus Jack ....152 

Too Slow 153 

Hikes 154 

Election Day 155 

Should Women Vote? 156 

Barmaids 158 

Making History 158 

The New Zealander 159 

Maori Figures 160 

Morals and Mummery 161 

Tabu 162 

On Easy Street 163 

Marked for Life 163 

Peculiarities 164 

Birds of Passage 165 

Waterspout 165 

Sydney Harbor 168 

Seeing Sydney 169 

Laughing Jackass 170 

Et Cetera 170 

Black Opals 171 

Street-Car Holdup 171 

A Fast Race 172 

You Bet 173 

A Prizefight 174 

"Soak Der Kaiser" 175 

Manly Behavior 176 

Tea With Coffee 177 

Religious Relics 178 

Blue Mountains 179 

Sydney After Dark 181 

Yankeephobia 182 

Botany Bay 183 

Captain Cook 184 

Australian Aborigines 185 

A Black Angel 186 

Boomerangs 187 

Tale of a Kangaroo 188 

A Barkless Dog 189 

Emu and Cockatoo 190 

Intercession 190 

My Lord! 191 

The Broad and Narrow 

Way 192 

A New Menu 193 

Drought 193 

Melbourne 194 

Public Buildings 194 

"888" 196 

A Point of View 196 

A Capital Farce 197 



CONTENTS— Continued. 



Page 

Worth Seeing . , - 197 

Melba 198 

The Big Noise 20O 

Train of Gold 201 

Something Better 202 

A Rough Estimate 203 

Sheep's Clothing 204 

A Tasmanian River 206 

Launceston 206 

Maid in Tasmania 207 

Hobart Happenings 207 

Mount Wellington 208 

Strange Sights 209 

Tasmanian Devils 211 

What Is It? 211 

Demon's Land 212 

Hops 213 

A Jail-Bird's Nest 214 

Across the Tasman Sea 214 

Tempest-Tossed 215 

Hard Luck 216 

En Route 218 

A Deck-a-Log 218 

Midnight Landing 219 

Adventures 220 

A Pajama Party 221 

Night Thoughts 222 

Two Silhouettes 223 



Page 

The Natives 223 

Cocoanuts 224 

Orangemen 225 

Rare Rarotonga 226 

Ofif Color 227 

Eyes 227 

Bombarded 229 

Hell's Masterpiece 231 

Venus Devotees 232 

Pearl-Divers 223 

A Royal Tomb 234 

Society Groups 235 

Gods and Devils 236 

By the Way 238 

Wedding Guests 239 

A Double Knot 239 

The Wedding Feast 240 

Some Strange Marriages. .. .241 

Moving Pictures 243 

Market Morals 244 

Sunday Shoppers 245 

A Celestial Paradise 247 

Island Definitions 249 

My Antipodean Alphabet. . .249 

Elbert Hubbard 250 

The "Maitai" Derelict 252 

Panama Exposition 254 

Hurrah for U. S.! 255 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



PAGE 

Maid in Tahiti Frontispiece 

Author in Tahitian Dress ii 

A South Sea Scene v 

G. L. Morrill vii 

Surf-Board Rider, Honolulu xii 

Brink of Kilauea Volcano, Hawaii 8 

The Devil's Pulpit, Hawaii 9 

"Razing" Cane, Hawaii 12 

An Hawaiian "Prince" 13 

Old Style Hula Girl 16 

PIula-Hula Dancers, Mid-Pacific Carnival, Honolulu 17 

Outrigger Canoe, Fiji 19 

Black Beauties, Fiji 26 

Rewa River Scenery, Fiji 27 

Lali Drum Call to Church, Suva, Fiji 31 

A Kava Party, Fiji 32 

Cannibal Fork and Platter, Suva, Fiji 42 

Ex-Cannibal Chief, Fiji 43 

Meke Meke Dance, Fiji 54 

Painting Tapa, Fiji 55 

Public Comfort Station, Levuka, Fiji 56 

Home Builders, Levuka, Fiji 57 

Making Kava, Tonga 58 

Pounding Tapa, Nukualofa, Tonga 60 

Tonga's National Air, Nukualofa, Tonga 61 

Huts and Nuts, Haapai, Tonga 76 

House Wrecked by Hurricane, Haapai, Tonga 77 

"Come In, the Water's Fine!" 84 

In the Hurricane, Vauvau, Tonga 85 

The Tin Can Mail, Niuafoou, Tonga 90 

Tongan Belles 91 

A Sit-Down Dance, Samoa 94 

Lime-Haired Native, Apia, Samoa 9 6 

Native House and Grave, Samoa 97 

Robert Louis Stevenson's Grave, Mt. Vaea, Samoa 102 

Stevenson's House, "Vailima," Samoa 103 

Samoan Maiden Meditation, Fancy-Free 104 

Drying Cocoanuts, Samoa 105 

Siva Siva Dancers, Samoa 110 

Samoan Taupo HI 

Rubbing Noses, Maori Pah, New Zealand 123 

Dancing the "Haka," New Zealand 128 

A Maori Mansion, Rotorua, New Zealand 129 



Tarawera Volcano and Lake, New Zealand 130 

A Geyser Blowout, Rotorua, New Zealand 131 

Nose Greetings, Rotorua, New Zealand 140 

"Totalisator" — Race-Track Gambling, Auckland, New Zealand. .141 

Women Voting, Wellington, New Zealand 156 

An Australian Acrobat 167 

In Sydney Harbor, Australia 168 

Cockatoos, Sydney, Australia 169 

Manly Beach, Sydney, Australia 176 

The Blue Mountains, Australia 177 

Aboriginal Woman, Australia 186 

Dancing Aborigine, with Boomerang, La Perouse, Australia. . . .187 

"888" Labor Monument, Melbourne, Australia 196 

Convict in Cell, Tasmania 205 

Hobart Harbor and Mt. Wellington, Tasmania 208 

Hobart Town, Tasmania 209 

Convict Regalia, Hobart, Tasmania 212 

In Jail, Hobart, Tasmania •• 213 

Gathering Cocoanuts, Rarotonga, Cook Islands 217 

Going to Market, Papeete, Tahiti 229 

Shelled by German Warships, Papeete, Tahiti 230 

Home, Sweet Home, Tahiti 231 

Fish Boats and Baskets, Tahiti 238 

Double Canoe and Bird of Fete, Tahiti 239 

Native Wedding, Tahiti 240 

Sunday Morning Market, Papeete, Tahiti 241 

Elbert Hubbard and G. L. Morrill, East Aurora, N. Y 250' 



rrTTin 




HAWAII 



DIRTY WEATHER 



MY Uncle Sam would not let me go to the war-troubled 
waters of the South Seas, until he put my picture on 
the passport to prove I was a good American, and 
kept one as a fond remembrance for fear I might 
never return. 

There's something in a name, for my sleeper to California 
was called ' ' Malvolio. ' ' My baggage was lost ; the noisy, frozen 
steam-pipes made me **hot" by day and night; an old farmer, 
who had not been off the farm for forty years, made the adjacent 
section look like a barnyard; and floods in California drowned 
out its sunshine and delayed the train. At Los Angeles we 
swam across the street in search of a hotel and just escaped 
being run in by a patrol wagon that was making a raid on the 
dives. To escape the deluge we grabbed the first car to New- 
port beach. During the night the Pacific ocean tore the side- 
walk away and undermined our porch. I rose early Sunday 
morning and leaving the illustrated scripture of this house 
built on the sand and not on the rock, fled to 'Frisco and was 
met at the station by the worst storm in twenty years. Un- 
daunted by the thought that it meant a rough passage, we 
went to the boat office and learned that our ship ''Marama" 
had ripped her bottom on the rocks of Grolden Gate and was 
in dry-dock hospital with slow convalescence and a doctor bill 
of $100,000. However, I could sail on the "Sierra" that after- 
noon at two o'clock for Honolulu. I reversed the trip and on 
leaving the hotel received a phone call saying the weather was 
too "dirty" and that the sailing was postponed till 10 o'clock 
next morning. 

For fear she would be blown away without us we went 
aboard that night. The ship advertised as 10,000 tons was only 
6,000, but she could make 17 knots an hour, which was 10 knots 

1 



2 HAWAH 

slower than some of our fast party could go. You see we had 
a theatrical musical comedy troupe on board and that night 
in port they began their high jinks of singing and dancing. 
I could play the piano religiously but not raggedly, so when I 
left, the leader took the piano and tossed the waves of melody 
up and down the key-board shore while the girls practised the 
steps they were to do at Honolulu. One of them insisted I 
should accompany her with my feet if not my hands, and the 
way she pulle'd me around was a good preparation for the 
sailor's hornpipe old Neptune was to furnish next day. 

Morning came, the visitors went ashore, friends cried, sang 
"Aloha," threw confetti and said bon voyage, which translated 
meant "bum voyage," for we were no sooner outside the Gate 
than the "Sierra" took a head dive into the sea as if she wanted 
to reach Honolulu by the submarine route. 

"Shiver my timbers," and the waves did, of the ship and 
every saint and sinner aboard. "All inside," shouted the cap- 
tain, and as we crossed the bar on beam's end a big whisky 
bottle bowled across the saloon and struck my foot. It was 
empty and of no value except to place a message in and send 
afloat if we were added to the many wrecks in the history of 
this coast. 

Only six of our sixty souls came to dinner, the rest with the 
"Baby Doll" singers and dancers were leaning over the rail 
singing the Abt chorus, "When the swallows homeward fly." 
For six days we had a big head wind that hurled heavy seas 
over the bridge and decks. It was rough and tough, so 
were some of the men who played poker and swore for good 
luck. We slowed down to ten knots and less and one day 
stopped with just enough steam to steer. Officer Johnson said 
the waves were twenty-five feet high, but they looked a mile 
above the trough of the sea and their volume, force and color 
would have furnished papa Haydn with another "Creation" 
for his children. At night there was no sleep in the cradle 
of the deep. In my bunk I was banged from side to side till 
I lay flat on my back and wedged myself with pillows. The 
"Sierra" must have been named after the Rocky mountains 
for she was "rocky" and the waves were mountainous. 

Sunday was warmer and the waves more quiet. The cap- 
tain asked me to preach, but my stomach was so far from 




BRINK OF KILAUEA VOLCANO 



HAWAII 




THE DEVIL'S PULPIT 



HAWAII 



HAWAII y 

that night to take a pack at a time, put them in the ashes 
before the big grate fire at the Volcano House and toast their 
sides and edges in a few seconds while sitting comfortably in 
a chair. Walking around for several hours we discovered that 
purgatory was here and not hereafter, for our "soles" were 
disinfected by the sulphur cracks. I imagine there are smells 
like this in perdition. A volcano is a grand place to wear out 
shoes, and a veritable abode of lost soles. 

The guide took us there again at night. It was a wild ride 
with the auto light in front, the stars and moon overhead and 
the red glow of the volcano over all. This was the place to 
stage Dante's Inferno I thought as I looked down into the 
howling, hissing hell of surging lava, and to torment the nations 
which forget God. We drove back to the hotel in silence. The 
room was chilly, my teeth were chattering with cold and I won- 
dered why Demosthenes had not made some arrangement with 
Mephistopheles to have the steam heat piped to the bed rooms. 
I presume in fifty years the traveler will stop at a new Volcano 
House with appointments of direct steam heat and sulphur 
baths, lava beds with Pele hair mattresses, Lucifer sulphur 
matches, volcano gas light and elevator service, asbestos launch 
trips across the burning lake and a hot time day and night. 
That night I pulled the bed over by the window, looked at the 
red cloud pillar of smoke and fire and fell asleep dreaming that 
the Judgment Day had come and the wicked had been cast into 
Halemaumau with ''weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth." 

The poet would never have written ''Nothing walks with 
aimless feet," if he had seen a tenderfoot like "L" or me who 
went miles along a strange road to find the ladies of our party 
who had gone out for a short walk. We arrested them in their 
mad flight and met a convict who wanted me to speak at the 
jail to a gang of prisoners who were making a new road. I 
trust they were improving their "ways." On our return we 
passed through a forest of ferns and koa trees. Ferns with us 
are pretty and small, a home for a bug. Here we were 
Lilliputians among ferns that grew like trees way overhead. 

It was Lincoln's birthday and after some patriotic remarks 
at dinner, my Greek friend said we would celebrate by going 
to Pele. Legend and history tell of sacrifices and offerings of 
the sacred ohelo berries to appease her eruptive anger. But 




10 HAWAH 



Kapiolani freed her people from the slavery of fear, defied the 
priests, ate the berries and threw stones in the crater, I too 
would make an offering for Pele was rather coy and veiled 
her awful beauty. I took my card on which I wrote the names 
of our party, pinned an American flag on it, repeated Webster's 
tribute, tied it to a lava stone and threw it in the crater. In- 
stantly there was a roar, the clouds of steam and smoke 
separated and I looked down into a heart of flame and heat 
as great as the emancipator's. 

A JOY-RIDE 

ITH regret to leave this world's wonder, we went 
back to Hilo through tropical forests, towns and cane 
plantations. Everything was so beautiful we wanted 
to see more and took the scenic railway for a trip to 
Paauilo through Hamakua district. The fare is ten cents a 
mile, but cheap when you know the road is up hill, over gulch 
and valley, through mountain and over trestle, and in places 
cost half a million dollars a mile. There is scenery and the road 
was built to see it. Running along the edge of the bluff we 
had the Pacific blue and white to our right with a sail or ship. 
On the left were thousands of acres of cane plantations with 
settlements, natives at work, sluiceways and mills. Before 
and beneath were deep green gulches over which we swung on 
steel spider-like trestles that furnished a fill of sights and 
thrills. 

It rained as usual but the cloud curtain lifted and there 
was no question about the scenery. It was full of exclamation 
points — a trip of tumbling torrents, terrifying trestles, tunnels, 
tropical trees and tiny towns. The conductor called our special 
attention to the Onomea arch, Akaka falls, the lovely little town 
of Laupahoehoe and took as much delight in pronouncing the 
names as we did in seeing the places. 

At one station two Hawaiians were having a fist fight. I 
thought they were wrestling until one knocked the other out 
and carried him off on his shoulders. I tried to get a picture 
of it but one of the victim's friends kept moving in front of 
the camera until I might have had a fight with him if the 
train had not signaled all aboard. 



HAWAII 11 

After our dinner at the Paauilo hotel I remembered how- 
Captain Cook was killed on this island by the natives and I was 
sorry our cook had not fallen into their hands before we did 
into his. The eggs were more fit for footlights than food. 
There was some satisfaction in the Portuguese keeper's pretty 
daughter who waited on us, but even she can not make me 
forget how I ran out in the rain to "snap" a big fish and 
left my umbrella. I had carried it globe-trotting for years. 
It fitted my hand and had not only sheltered me from sun and 
rain but shielded me from vicious dog attacks. It was like 
losing an old friend. It had been recovered several times but 
now was utterly lost. Next to your health down here an 
umbrella is the worst thing you can lose for you need it all 
the time. 

There was a big sugar mill and the managers were kind 
and sweet and showed us the full process from the cane coming 
in until it went out as sugar bagged for export. 

The work in the sugar plantations and mills is carried on by 
Japanese, Portuguese and Russian laborers. They have their 
little settlements, churches and schools and are well taken care 
of by the planters. 

A WET TOWN 

ACK to Hilo and the Hotel Demosthenes where we ate, 
drank and rested as peacefully as if we were in 
Athens. Sunday morning we went to Hawaiian 
churches and a Japanese temple. Hearing some 
music in a hall I entered and found the Salvation Army hold- 
ing Sunday School service with Chinese, Japanese, Portuguese 
and Hawaiian children. There was a big American flag as well 
as a Bible that made me feel at home, and when the leader asked 
me to speak I did, in a way that made them laugh and feel I was 
their big brother. 

The only grass house in Hawaii is the Hilo postoffice, with 
private box v/indows on the outside and the roof covered with 
green growing grass that had been uncut for some time. Hilo 
is the rain-maker's paradise. Here the Pacific Shower Co. runs 
a big water works for all the islands. The main game is pool 
and is played with galoshes, umbrellas and oiled coats. Nature 




12 HAWAII 

should have made the Hiloites web-footed. Sunday afternoon 
Mooheau park near the beach was the center of attraction. We 
saw a ball game between Japs and Hawaiians, listened to a fine 
band concert by the natives while lovers strolled and a Chink 
sold them peanuts from a Eockefeller oil can, and watched 
Japanese laborers shovel the sand from the railroad track a 
baby tidal wave had piled up the night before. That evening 
we went to church and heard a lecture on Charles Dickens and 
after this day of rest were ready to sleep. 

In the morning we buzzed to Hakalau where the cane is 
sluiced and flumed into the big mill that lies at the mouth of a 
deep wide gulch where robbers roosted centuries ago. Returning, 
we rode through cane fields and watched the natives cut the 
cane down with machetes and load it on sleds which mules 
hauled to the sluice-way. I cut some souvenir canes which we 
ate instead of using as walking sticks. "We got another glimpse 
of Laupahoehoe that looked as if it had been washed up by 
the sea. It is a sacred city in Hawaiian history and full of 
legend and folk lore. 

Leaving Hilo I was sure its five thousand citizens enjoy their 
city and surroundings of green cliff, waterfalls and pretty bay, 
and are especially proud of Mokuola, the Cocoanut Island, 
pictured on post cards and the subject of a fishy legend that 
would delight the world's most famous angler. 

The tidal wave kept our boat from docking for a long while 
but she finally came in, swung to and fro, let down the gang, 
the gang crowded in, the boat pulled out and soon the island of 
Hawaii with its Hilo and mountains faded from sight and 
were things of the past to be ever present in mind. 

ROYAL FELLOWS 

T is said if you drink of the Trevi fountain at Rome 
you will return. If you have once drunk in the 
delight of Honolulu you Vv'ill come back again. So here 
I was. I had called on the governor, had seen 
ex-Queen Liliuokalani and it was only fair and fitting that I 
should call on the Prince. Though three hundred years old, he 
is one of the most active and remarkable inhabitants of the 
island. He was in the family of Kamehameha and has outlived 





'RAZING" CANE 



HAWAII 




AN HAWAIIAN "PRINCE' 



HONOLULU 



HAWAII 13 



them all. He bears his years well, is so strong that I stood 
on his back, and is of such a retiring nature that he withdrew 
his head modestly within his shell, being a tortoise. Thrones 
and rulers have come and gone but he remains thrown up by 
the ocean of the past on the shores of time. 

There is another prince of a good fellow, not at all slow, 
and they call him "Cap" Eiley. I knew "Hal" when as a boy 
I went to Sunday school with him at Alton. I guess he doesn't 
go to church very much now, but no matter how much he 
swings with the tide of affairs I am sure he is anchored by that 
early instruction and a mother's devotion. He introduced me 
to Captain Foster, the harbor-master, who told me how he 
used to "blackbird" in the South Seas and showed me curios, 
charts and old photographs, telling me stories about them that 
opened my eyes with wider amazement than when I read Oliver 
Optic. 

At the Immigration Office I met Halsey, my old theological 
chum, once an eloquent preacher, a successful missionary to 
Japan and now the head and heart of the institution. He 
believes in the divine Fatherhood and Brotherhood, but doesn 't 
respect a heathen now until he has inspected and disinfected 
him. He took me over the buildings and showed me what was 
done from the time a man came ashore until he was accepted 
or sent back. There is a record of his nativity, religion, busi- 
ness, mentality and condition inside and out. In the ladies' 
quarters I saw some "picture-bride" Japanese girls who were 
waiting for husbands. Personally I shouldn't think they would 
have to wait very long, they were so pretty, but if their 
lovers failed to appear and make good, for fear of "bad" 
results the girls were to be sent back. Of course it's a shame, 
but better the shame than the sin. Lack of restriction has 
almost made Uncle Sam profanely say, "0 God, the heathen 
have come into thine inheritance." Immigration must be 
restricted to the mentally, morally and physically fit or .we 
are ruined. Honolulu must be a garden and not a garbage 
heap. 

This city is always entertaining in what it is and does. 
Editor Farrington invited me to speak at Young's Hotel for 
the Advertising Club. I complimented the members on their 
spirit of happy hustle. The lunch was fine and I did it justice 



14 HAWAII 

and my subject too, I guess, for a Chinese member asked me 
to speak for his Alliance of young Chinese people that night 
who were to have music and a play. China always attracted 
me, whether it was the marbles I played, the rare pieces in 
my mother 's cupboard or the flowery kingdom , I had visited. 
I went and spoke and was delighted with my reception. On 
leaving I met some drunken, swearing United States soldiers and 
wondered who was the "heathen," the Confucian Chinaman or 
Christian American. This bad exhibition prepared me for a punk 
wrestling match held at the Armory. Scientifically it was one 
of the worst things possible. The men looked like consumptives 
and acted like paralytics. 

"Sunny Jim" McCandless never hides his light under a 
bushel but shines in the business. Masonic and social world and 
never more so than when he shows a visitor his loved Honolulu. 
He toted us in his wife's new car to every pretty place from 
Pearl harbor to the Pali. I took pictures, but the one I most 
wanted I couldn't get when he was guiding my wife around 
the Pali point and the wind was blowing a gale that mingled 
his coat-tails with her skirts, making impromtu balloons and 
wings which I feared might end in an elopment. Scandalous, 
McCandless ! 



T 



MID-PACIFIC CARNIVAL 

HE Mid-Pacific Carnival is Honolulu's annual big 
show. Soldiers filled the streets in which there was 
to be a "Pageant, 100 Years of Peace" between Eng- 
land and America. The rain drowned it out but 
Old Glory and Union Jack were "fast" friendly colors that 
never ran. However, this water was good for the aquatic sports 
in the harbor where strong boys and shapely girls made a good 
exhibit of limbs that could dive, swim and float. Everybody 
was happy, even the German sailors who came from the Prinz 
"Waldemar that lay interned nearby. But you should have seen 
the floats at night. The Japanese lantern parade was bigger, 
brighter and better than anything I had seen in Japan in point 
of artistry and artisanship. 

The "Parade of Queens" was in front of the palace that 
blazed with thousands of electric lights the pouring rain could 



HAWAn 15 



not put out. Queen "Lil" graciously received the two queens 
of the carnival and as she sat with the light falling on her 
furrowed face I wondered what thoughts went through her 
mind and heart when she remembered how she had been queen 
indeed, the palace her throne room and the natives her devoted 
subjects. The falling rain took the style and starch out of 
slippers, suits and dresses, but did not dampen the ardor of the 
dancers. The different dances of the nations were given. Some 
were slow and solemn, others lively and gay. Water ankle-deep 
could not stop the fantastic steps. Soon unofficially and infec- 
tiously everybody was doing it. People who wouldn't go to 
church Sunday if it sprinkled for fear they might take cold, 
danced and splashed for hours. It was a good night for ducks 
and dancers. Beauty was benighted and bedraggled and the 
shorter the hose, the longer the rubber as these water-nymphs 
out-pranced the official dancers of Neptune's court. 

The Army and Navy ball at the Armory was a struggle for 
existence whether you tried to get in, danced, or got out. The 
brave deserved the fair and got it. Boys smelled powder on 
fair cheeks and were willing with unblanched faces to have 
their death-warrant written in powder black and blood-red. 

Sunday was a sun day, a bridal of earth and sky. I went 
to the native church, built of coral bricks taken from the sea. 
The worshippers were young and old and dressed in simple 
holokus or French silks. One old Uncle Tom was loaded with 
badges. I liked the singing but cut the sermon for services 
at several other churches. Later at Waikiki I heard the military 
band whose waves of melody mingled with those of the surf, 
and at night listened to patriotic addresses on peace and war 
at the opera house where Nordica sang for the last time before 
she entered the "Choir Invisible." 

February 22nd! Hurrah for G. W., whose initials grow 
bigger and brighter every year. Mrs. Emmans served us with 
"Washington Crisps on "Washington china. Down town the 
military parade was an honor to the time, place and occasion 
and told more eloquently than words what your Uncle Sam 
could do on short notice if he had to. It was an honor to Wash- 
ington who gave us liberty, and to Lincoln who made Union 
possible. Old and new Glory in banners and bunting was 
everywhere, and mingled with the native decoration of green 



16 HAWAH 

and yellow, while patriotic citizens in yellow peaked hats, leis, 
ribbons and badges bombarded each other with confetti and 
hurrahed themselves hoarse. 

The chef d'oeuvre was the Hawaiian pageant representing the 
conquest of Kamehameha and the ''Dawn of the New Era." It 
was staged at fresco on Oahu College grounds. The different 
islands were represented by stones in map form on the green 
grass. The history of the islands was illustrated by trained 
natives in native dress. Peaceful occupation, cultivation, 
religion, pleasure, love, hate, war and conquest all passed in 
review. Old Hawaiians looked on in sad reverie, youth was 
pleased, maturer years were thoughtful and the visitor de- 
lighted. 



THE HULA-HULA 

MADE the tour of every island taking many pictures 
of the many groups, ceremonies and dances. To some 
the hula dance was the most interesting chapter of 
this history lesson. It was danced by selected dancers 
dressed in nothing much but grass skirts and leis. There was 
a dance on every island and every little movement had a mean- 
ing all its own. The old time hula-hula was an illustrated edi- 
tion of "Poems of Passion," but is now so expurgated that it 
is little more than a ladies' seminary hand-book on the poetry 
of motion. The old hula is as extinct as the Dodo bird. The 
expectant tourist may hunt, but he won't find it, not even on a 
post card. The missionaries told the natives such a Bacchanalian 
rite was wrong. Often the new is worse than the old and the 
traveler who wants to drown himself or throw himself over the 
cliff because he can't find this naked native dance, need not 
despair for there are m.odern dances just as suggestive and 
demoralizing. The day closed with some grand fireworks at 
Moilili Park and Washington was present in a set piece. When 
the last candle shot, powder burned and rocket soared towards 
the envious stars, the glorified spirit of the man still first in the 
hearts of his countrymen seemed to say, "Bless you, my 
children. ' ' 





HAWAII 17 



FRIENDS 

jB were hero-worshippers but next day I met a bare- 
footed, lean, sad-faced man who for twenty years had 
1^^^^ gone daily to the big statue of Kamehameha and wor- 
shipped it like an idol. People say he's crazy but he 
knev/ enough to take a quarter tip and I enough to take his 
picture. His eyes rolled, his hands moved, his lips trembled but 
I clutched and held him long enough to get him. 

Of course I drank Honolulu's health in pineapple juice at 
the big factory ; looked with open-mouthed wonder at the mar- 
vellously shaped and colored fishes of the Aquarium; yelhjd 
savagely as I came in on the crest of a wave in an outrigg(3r 
canoe ; splashed and floundered on a surf -board ; went on board 
the "Great Northern" which was the first passenger ship to 
come through the Panama Canal,, and to the "Ad" Club where 
a luncheon was given to the captain and young "Walter Hill who 
sat at my left. He made a good reply to Farrington's toast and 
I followed, complimenting his father and referring to St. Paul 
as a city set upon the "Jim" Hill that could not be hid. 

FOES 

S. has thousands of soldiers here to protect her 
possessions but the soldiers need protection. Some- 
thing good must be done for our boys or the enemy of 
disease and debauchery will destroy them before they 
ever reach the front. One night I visited the "Evilay," the 
segregated district, with its different nationalities of frail 
femininity, and it looked like the barracks, so many soldiers 
were there. What a fine example to set the natives who have 
been degenerating and fast dying out ever since Captain Cook's 
sailors introduced syphilis in the Hawaiian Islands. The beach- 
comber, exploiter and trader have taught them vices instead of 
virtues, while the missionary taught the men to put away idols 
and the women to put on a holoku — a Mother Hubbard — that 
covers everything and fits nothing like many of the theories 
advanced for their mental and moral improvement. I am neither 
a canting nor criticizing citizen or Christian, but aside from race 
or religion, color or creed, think all the good people of Hawaii 





18 HAWAII 



should see that the best pictures, music, library and gymnasium 
should offset vice and make it easy for our brave boys to 
be good. 

HEAVEN ON EARTH 

I HAT Hawaii will I have no doubt, because she is up- 
to-date in everything else. She has table d'hote, not 

S^^l P^ij champagne and soda, not kava; Texas Tommies, 
not hula-hulas ; Nev/ York dress and not grass skirts; 
Chicago shoes and not bare feet; Panama hats and not bare 
heads ; Young palatial hotels and not old grass houses ; and autos 
and street cars instead of wagons and horses. Honolulu is just 
itself in climate and wonder. It means life not death, business 
as well as pleasure, happiness and hope. It is the world's happy 
hunting ground for those hunting pleasure. A man who couldn 't 
be happy here would find something to grumble at in heaven. 
But while entrance to heaven is without money and price it 
costs something to get here and live after you land. 

You may sail all over the South Seas and then come back 
to your own Hawaiian Islands to find the best of every big, 
bright and beautiful thing. Here is the climate of an Eden, 
the fragrance of a garden, the beauty of a rainbow, the home 
of plenty and hospitality unparalleled. The old lady was not 
far from right when she asked me if I was going again to 
Hallelujah, meaning Honolulu. 

Happy Hawaii ! where Old Glory floats in the fairest of 
skies, sun-lit or star-strewn. If you don't believe all I have 
said or the folders advertise, ask the opinion of the three 
greatest travelers — the sun, wind and wave. The sun does 
not roast it, wind wreck it or wave flood it. 




SAILING "DARK" 

TIHE English ship ''Niagara," sailing from Vancouver 
I to Sydney, is a fine large vessel and since the war she 

had been like the wind coming and going at her own 
sweet will. On the previous trip she had cut out the 
stops at Honolulu and Fiji and it was almost necessary for us 
to camp at the wharf to be ready to board her, for she was sail- 
ing "dark" and kept the public and her passengers in the 
dark about her when and whereabouts. 

At last she came and we went on with leis around our necks, 
music in our ears, alohas on our lips and a regret in our hearts 
that we could not stay in Honolulu forever and a day. I 
strolled out on deck to see the sunset on the canvas of the sky 
and found myself battened in with canvas on all sides. When 
it grew dark, deck lights were out, port holes covered and I went 
up on deck to get a view of the full moon and a breath of fresh 
air. "Who goes there?" yelled a voice. "A first-class pass- 

19 



20 FIJI 

enger," I replied. Instead of asking me to advance to give the 
password and sign he made a sign with his hand, pointed to 
the lower deck and said, ''No admittance, except on business. 
I'm the only one who has any right here." I was shaved and 
fairly well dressed, looked peaceful and my harmless spyglass 
didn't appear very suspicious, but he was the wireless guard 
and there was only one thing to do, obey. I went down and 
took vengance on the grand piano, smiting the ivories as if 
the keys were an enemy. 

It was torrid long before we reached the Equator. The din- 
ing saloon port holes were closed and papered, the decks were 
nearly hermetically sealed, yet the proper thing for the Eng- 
lish passengers was to appear in full dress. As I happened to 
be an American I took the liberty of being independent, leav- 
ing my tuxedo buried in my trunk. They squirmed and stuffed, 
mopped their high brows and seasoned their soup with pepper 
and perspiration. "Toad-in-the-Hole" and "Bubble-and- 
Squeak" were some of the strange items on the bill of fare. 
As we neared cannibal country the ''h"-dropping Englishman, 
true to his tongue, offered the menu "Peasant breasts." 

KILLING TIME 

TIWO dollars and a half was vfhat each man put up for 
I sport prizes. It is an old custom, more honored in the 

^^Mj breach than the observance, to help the ship-barber 
^^^ make his living, since men use safety razors now, by 
collecting about fifty dollars for prizes. You then go to the 
barber shop and buy a lot of glass, tin and leather junk worth 
about $5 and give it with a big speech to some little man or 
woman who has been proudly victorious in a potato race or 
pillow fight. It did seem wicked to spend so much for so little 
to buy luxuries, when the war made widows and orphans beg 
for necessities, and we voted that only fifty cents of the $2.50 
should go to the barber and the rest be turned into the, 
patriotic fund. 

My friends thought I was foolish to make the long Pacific 
journey in war time, but I was willing to risk it. Day and night 
the officers were on special watch and peeked through the can- 
vas to get a glimpse of the "Dresden," which lucky for us was 



FIJI 21 



then thousands of miles away. The nearest thing we saw to 
fights were some shooting stars by night and deck sports by 
day. Merlon Emmans had carried off most of the prizes and 
when he found himself face to face in a pillow fight with Lord 
Somebody or Nobody, who had snubbed him, he soaked his royal 
nibs fore, aft and mid-ships in true Hawaiian fashion. 

We crossed the Equator. It had been worn so smooth by 
the many ships that had gone over it that I didn't notice the 
bump, yet I did feel a breeze, for my room, which had been like 
a stoker's hold, suddenly became as cool as the man you ask for 
a loan of five dollars. As it was Sunday, Captain Eowls con- 
ducted service a la Church of England. It was impressive with 
a Union Jack draped pulpit, scripture and prayers for the suc- 
cess of the English soldiers and songs of thanks for deliverance 
from perils of the deep. It is bad to "play on Sunday," applied 
to the band. Too bad, the men needed a brakeman more than 
a conductor, 

Sighted Horn island, the first land in a week. The natives 
and their cocoanuts belong to great Britain. We soon lost sight 
of the island and next day lost a day. Where did it go ? Science 
tells plainly, but it is a problem just the same. We often lose 
a day's study or a night's rest and here was a whole day at 
once. "Strange" some said, yet they did little else than plan 
how to kill time. 

FIJIANS 

T last far-off, ferocious Fiji appeared. We sailed by 
wreck on coral reef, past palmy islands with leper 
and Indian settlements and entered Suva harbor. 
Around about were jagged hills and mountains that 
looked like teeth, just the kind and shape for cannibal islands. 
One hill looked like a Giant Thumb pointing upwards to the 
place the natives had sent so many missionaries. 

We slipped by the British gun-boat "Encounter" to the 
wharf where we saw strange sights. Giant swarthy natives, 
shiny with cocoanut oil, showed their white teeth in grinning 
welcome. Some were bare-legged, armed and breasted, others 
had on an undershirt and all wore a bright colored sulu or loin 
cloth, artistically draped from hip to knee. Their hair stood 
up six inches from their forehead and was frizzled, matted, 
bushed and jungled. The Fijian has a hypsistenocephallic head 





22 FIJI 

although it isn't his fault, unless you blame him for the high 
stack of hair he piles on his head. The hair was black unless 
it had been colored red and yellow with lime. They wore a red 
hibiscus flower over one ear, a eigaret over the other and offered 
to sell us fruits, mats, shells and coral and to carry our baggage 
to the hotel. 

Two grinning Goliaths now appeared on the wharf pushing 
the red Royal mail car belonging to His Majesty. It looked 
like a cold storage meat box on wheels and was guarded as 
carefully as if it were a modern Ark of the Covenant. 

SUN-BAKED SUVA 

UVA was a very Vesuvius, a red hot town with red 
iron roofs, red flowers and sun. The thermometer 
blew out a cylinder head and I feared I could not 
reach the shade before my "too sordid flesh" melted. 
Shades of the lost in Topliet! But there was no shade in our 
walk from the boat to the hotel and we were roasted. We 
gasped for breath and even Mrs. "M's" hand-bag gaped open. 
The roll of American Express checks fell on the wharf and 
almost through the cracks into the sea as if wanting a swim. 
None of us saw it except a Fijian named Naphtali, who picked 
it up and radiant with smiles and redolent with eocoanut oil 
handed it to my wife. This was our first introduction to a 
Fijian and his happy honesty was a sign of more to follow. 

It was growing hotter, so were we, without lifting a finger, 
respiration was difficult, perspiration profuse. A custom 
officer had his eye on our luggage, but we made it easy for 
the baggage to slip through and were soon under the protecting 
porch of the McDonald Hotel. Jack London had been here before 
me and occupied room No. 4, where he dictated "The Wolf" 
to his wife. This was my room so there was a literary air even 
if there was no atmosphere. I had a fine view of the bay and 
mountains and could overlook the Victoria Parade with park, 
stores and government buildings. 

The Victoria parade is a passing show. Here come autos 
and carriages with white diplomats, merchants and society folks ; 
Chinese storekeepers, Samoan laundrymen and Solomon Island- 
ers on their way to the plantation; Fijian soldier-guard, with 



HAWAII 3 

''peace be still" that I lay in a steamer chair, with my Bible 
open to David's eulogy of the sea, which I was in no position 
to appreciate. 

I am always seasick but never sick of the sea. Not by 
feasting or fasting, formula of pagan philosophy or Christian 
Science have I ever been able to sail unaccompanied by Mai 
de Mer. Old Neptune is a rough but good nurse. He jolts 
you up and down until he gets all the bile out of your system 
and makes you a good liver so that you forget every trouble 
of body, mind or soul. 

SMUGGLERS 



THERE'S a land that is fairer than day," I sang 
out as the morning sun flashed on Diamond Head. 
Unlike our former visit we were not met in the harbor 
with "Alohas" and leis but by several custom officers 
who looked at us with suspicious eyes. On the "Sierra's" 
former trip the first cook was caught smuggling opium and 
punished with a four month's jail sentence. They were on 
the right trail now, for they arrested two of our engineers 
who were trying to smuggle thirteen tins of opium in the 
lining of their vests. It was an unlucky number and a 
poor "investment," although worth $1,500, for they were 
pinched and imprisoned. If you want to be sure of a 
warm reception at Honolulu just bring over a few cans of 
poppy juice. It works wonders and you will be received with 
open arms, a billy and a pair of hand-cuffs. This deadly dope, 
which they try to smuggle over in table-legs and balcony rails, 
makes devils of the Chinese and Hawaiians. It is prohibited 
with severe penalties but nearly every ship tries to slip some in. 
Here's some "dope" on the subject I hope will not put you to 
sleep. 

DOPE 

NE morning the Devil called at Eve's ear and doped 

her to believe that poison was pleasure and that 

the fruit of death was the flower of life. Ever since 

then, abuse has made food poison, drink disease and 

dope death. 




4 HAWAII 

I have seen Hindus intoxicated with the hashish of their 
hemp fields; visited the great opium factory and dens in Macao, 
China; and recently traveled with native Indians across the 
Andes who chewed coca leaves for stimulation until they 
became sullen and sodden. In the homes and hospitals of our 
own cities I have found men and women who were physical, 
mental and moral slaves of opium, laudanum, morphine, and 
other opiates. 

Dope has degraded genius which too often has claimed ex- 
emption from the laws of man and God and looked down on 
common people. What would cast a poor man out of society 
or throw him in jail has elevated some literary high-brows. 

Coleridge was an anodyne dreamer and his genius sailing 
to heaven was wrecked in the mists of opium. De Quincey was 
a dope-fiend whose pleasures were "like poppies spread" and 
gave way to pain. Heine slumbered in the arms of morphine but 
woke up to pray that sleep's twin-brother Death would take his 
soul, Baudelaire enriched his imagination with hashish until 
his "Flowers of Evil" had the odor of his early grave, so that 
what lifted him to literary heights dragged him down to ruin. 

M. D. too often means much dope. 

While science has put into the hands of the conscientious 
surgeon the anaesthetic that dulls his knife and deadens pain 
until we willingly place the discoverer of the soothing drug 
in the highest class of humanity's saints and saviours, there 
have been far too many avaricious and conscienceless doctors 
who have prescribed opiates without cause, and criminal drug- 
gists who have sold them without prescription and in violation 
of the law until our cities have thousands of wrecks who have 
snuffed, smoked, injected and drunk themselves into diseased 
and demented dope-fiends. 

The world has had its various ages and stages — this is the 
Dope one. From cradle to coffin there is dope, poison and 
adulteration before, behind, above, beneath and around us. 

Food — Bread and meat have been bleached and preserved 
to hide the fraud of their poor material. 

Drink — ^Wines, teas and coffees are colored by poisons 
strong enough to eat the bottom out of a copper kettle. 

Homes are erected with rotten stone, plaster and plank 
which put the builder in the profession of cofSn-makers and 
undertakers. 



HAWAn 5 

Clothing is made of shoddy, dyed in slow colors that fast 
run out. 

Drugs are doped until they are as dangerous as dynamite. 

Art crams us full with crazy cubists and fanatic futurists. 

Music, written by artists who were dippy or drunk at the 
time, we must applaud or be called ''ignorant." 

Literature with its rotten realism and puerile poetry is the 
weekly and monthly dose of the hour. 

Newspapers issue extras of inane editorials, soporific news 
and subsidized advertisements. 

Drama with its drivel and dirt puts to sleep our mental 
and moral faculties. 

Education, top-heavy, one-sided or lop-sided, impractically 
classical or impersonally utilitarian, is the student's daily dose. 

Politics jabbers with oratorical bunkum until the wily 
candidate drugs the listener and robs him of his vote. 

Religion snores. An opium sky showers soporific scrip- 
ture, song and sermon on the heads of sleepy sinners who jour- 
ney towards eternity with doped conscience and closed eyes, 
directed by the D. D. Doctors of Dope. 

We are all Jekylls and Hydes. Too often we let the animal 
ride the angel till flesh throws down the spirit and tramples it 
underfoot in the mire. Man becomes a monster and the divine 
becomes devilish. 

The saddest words are not those which describe a plague, 
a battle, quake or storm but the lives of those whom the dope- 
fiend hath made mad. 

We were guests of Mrs. Luella Emmans at her home on 
the beach at Waikiki. Beneath the royal palms and next to 
the royal estate she entertained us in a royal way. We took 
her to a Samoan dance that night and it was so active, amorous 
and attractive we easily persuaded her to see some mo' Samoa. 
We left her to get ready while we went to the island of Hawaii 
to call on Madame Pele, the native goddess, the tourist 's warmest 
sister in the islands. 

The steamer "Mauna Kea" left at 10 A. M. for Hilo, situ- 
ated on the island of Hawaii 200 miles distant. We soon passed 
Diamond Head, the extinct volcano, more deadly and dangerous 
now, with fortifications and guns, than when she shot out stones 
and lava. 




HAWAII 

LEPERS 
ELANCHOLY Molokai we saw next, the island of liv- 
ing death, the leper's lazar-house, the home of Dante's 
hopeless souls. None but lepers and tainted govern- 
ment officials can go ashore. Visitors are not allowed. 
I couldn't land though Governor Pinkham gave me a card 
of introduction to the M. D. head of the bureau. I won- 
dered why, if the patients were well cared for and the 
politicians who supervised the island were uncorrupted. I 
was unable to take a picture or get a postcard of the 
people, but Mr. Bonine, the official photographer, showed me 
some of his taken years ago. The only information received 
was second-hand. I want to believe the best is done and that 
I was denied permission to land and look for myself because 
the government is anxious to keep the prospective tourist to 
Hawaii ignorant of the fact that there is any leprosy in the 
islands. 

Leprosy is a dirt disease and is said to have been brought 
here by the Chinese. The victims are quarantined at one end 
of the island of Molokai. The town they live in is anything but 
dead. They have churches, schools, picture shows and bands. 
They are permitted to intermarry among themselves and their 
children are allowed to leave the island if they show no signs 
of the disease. But is seems to me that somebody is taking an 
awful chance. 

As we sailed by, my head and heart ached for these sad 
captives doomed to a living death, rotting away in a prison 
island, their fingers sloughing off, hair crawling like serp(3nts 
and faces growing like toad-skins. God pity them in their 
garden of Gethsemane grief! The only way out is the gate to 
the cemetery. As we left the island the sun braided the rain 
into a glorious arch and I hope the lepers saw it and looked 
above to the land where the inhabitants no more complain or 
say "I am sick." 

THE SUN'S HOUSE 

MAUI is a little island with one of the best sugar planta- 
tions, and the biggest extinct volcano in the world. 
At sunset we saw Haleakala, ''House of the Sun." 
Here Sol has a large, fine residence. The side walls 



reach ten thousand feet above the sea into the clouds and the re- 




HAWAII 



ception room is ten miles square. He keeps open house, for there 
is no roof. The traveler, moon and stars look down on a 
deserted banquet hall now, but the fun must have been fast 
and furious when wind and steam furnished the music, falling 
stones kept time and live lava couples swept by in waves of 
maddest merriment. 

ON TO THE VOLCANO 

HE morning gave us a pretty picture of Hilo, with its 
crescent bay, sandy beach, palm-fringed Cocoanut 
Island and Mount Mauna Kea, 14,000 feet high, blush- 
ing like a June bride. 
On the way to Kilauea we autoed to Rainbow Falls, saw the 
falls without the rainbow, and went to the Boiling Pots, which 
play pool by running water underground from one pool to 
another and bubbling up like water in a kettle. 

At the Volcano Stables we hired a fiery, smoky, sulphureous 
auto and were driven thirty miles to the Volcano House by 
climbing, winding road and through scenery varied and beauti- 
ful. Out from town there were Japanese gardens, sugar-cane 
flumes, many strange tropical ferns, trees, fruits and flowers, 
but strangest of all a water wagon with the word POISON 
painted in big letters on its side. It is hard enough for some 
people to get on and stay on the water wagon without frighten- 
ing them by a big barrel of ' ' poison ' ' when they only take it in 
small glassfuls. I climbed up to investigate and learned it was 
poisoned water to be sprinkled in the field and fence corners to 
kill the bugs which fed on the sugar-cane. 

After a 4,000-foot ascension we stopped at the Volcano 
House on the rim of the crater. Demosthenes Lycurgus, a hand- 
some, affable Greek, was there to meet me. "When he learned I 
had visited Athens he became as eloquent as the countrymen 
whose distinguished names he bore. He was as warm-handed 
and hearted as Pele. I told him he must be a good man to live 
so near a literal hell, but he smilingly informed me he was used 
to it, that the devil was a good friend of his and he would 
introduce me to him that night. He gave us the tower room 
that looked over the rim of the outer crater upon a black lava 
desert that had been raked by a hurricane of fire. It was a 
panorama of perdition, nearly five miles square, and from the 




8 HAWAH 

center fire, steam and smoke were issuing. Perhaps Vulcan was 
working overtime in his subterranean smithy, making arms and 
ammunition for Europe. 

HELL ON EARTH 

FTER lunch we started for the ''House of Everlasting 
Fire," Halemaumau. "L" could only remember the 
name by saying, "hell wi' mama." Facilis descensus 
Averno, especially in an auto on a narrow road for 
seven miles through a jungle of tree and fern. We stopped at 
a lava cavern and left our cards, gazed into extinct crater pits 
1000 feet deep, all covered with scrubby green growth, and 
sped along till we slowed and halted at the front porch of the 
''House of Everlasting Fire." I didn't care to go in. 

Nature is more accommodating with her volcanoes here 
than anywhere else in the world for everything seems easily 
arranged for the tourist. 500 feet below me lay a lava lake of 
smoke, sulphur, roar and heat that writers and painters have 
compared to everything that Dante said or Dore sketched. 
Literally, it looked like hell and was a hell of a place. The lava 
flows across and strikes the crater sides, making a noise like the 
roar of a ship ploughing through the sea, or like the surf break- 
ing on the shore. If you can 't think what to write home about it, 
go to the Volcano House register and read what a thousand 
visiting writers have written, including Mark Twain and myself. 
Much of it is so bad that it ought to be in the volcano. 

We trailed around the pit from the auto corral to the 
observation station; saw lava formations many and curious; 
roasted in the Devil's Kitchen; v/ere photoed and hung in the 
Devil's Picture Frame; and took a hot bath in Pole's Bath- 
room, "lava" tory as it should be called, where I found some 
of Pele's hair made of hot lava blown out and spun by the 
wind into thin wisps, yellow, green and brittle as glass. I 
occupied the Devil's Pulpit as on some other occasions. Whether 
you see the volcano or not the main thing is to toast post cards. 
The recipe for these "post toasties" is to get a post card, place 
it on a forked stick, hold it over a sulphur crack until it is 
golden brown on both sides, then stamp it, serve it to your 
friends with the address on one side and the word "volcano" on 
the other. After cooking fifty cards here I found it was easier 




FIJI 23 

their prisoners going to work ; Fijians with fish and fruit ; 
Hindu coolies rigged up in a rag bag ; Indian women, small and 
slender, with the colored livery of a sunset and loaded with 
enough jewelery around waist, ankles, neck, and in ears and 
nose, to break their back and their husband's bank account. 

CANNIBALS 

|UR appetites brought us to the dinner table and our 
food was served by Fijians and Solomon Islanders who 
wore red sulus and white duck jackets. The napkins 
they carried were not used so much to brush the flies 
off the dishes and food as to keep the mosquitoes off their legs 
and ankles. Later from the balcony we watched the moving 
picture of the natives going to the movies. I knew it was a 
good picture from their yells and howls of delight. It made me 
wonder how they would carry on and shout if they were real 
cannibals and I was to furnish them with 200 pounds of amuse- 
ment. That night there was no ease in our inn. The only canni- 
bals who survive are the blood-thirsty mosquitoes that feast on 
you all night, and in the most sensitive places, because the heat 
makes it impossible for you to wear much clothing. It's no use 
to use lurid language, they are used to it. They club and bite 
you, suck your blood, keep up a savage dance and sing a war 
chant until you are exhausted and they are full. Rats made 
friendly calls at all hours of day and night and held Olympian 
contests of jumping in the rooms and at night danced all the 
latest steps on the tin roof garden. 

Morning brought us a sunrise on hill, mountain and bay that 
made a nature picture too beautiful for brush or pen to describe. 
In the cool of the early day the natives shuffled by in their 
bare feet, and a barge was towed out of the harbor with a 
Hindu crew squatting on the deck and chanting a weird song. 
Just opposite, on a bench under the rain-trees, sat two Fijians. 
One was sick and the other was trying to charm away the ache 
by clapping his hands, laying them on the sick man's head 
three times and then striking the wood bench as if for good 
luck. 



24 FIJI 



KAVA 



CAPTAIN FOSTER'S letter of introduction to his old 
South Sea pal, Collins, was the sesame that opened his 
hand, heart, store and home. I met him in his pearl- 
shell store where Fijians sat among sacks of shells 
and sorted them out to be shipped to Japan for buttons. He 
gave us a drink of Tansan, the famous "Yours for health" 
Japanese mineral water, and for good luck a fist full of "cat's- 
eyes" that you look for in a pyramid-shaped shell on the coral 
reef. They are used for ornaments and pins and make you 
feel stuck up. He had lived long enough in Suva to know 
everybody and everything and was just the man to take me 
through town to the dry-goods stores for native hats and sulus, 
and to wet goods kava saloons, where I learned to drink and 
like the national beverage. 

Kava tastes like soap-suds seasoned with a little salt and 
pepper. It is made of the root of the yangona bush, and the 
natives dig the root, grind it up or chew it, mix it with water 
and then strain and drink it. This so-called saloon had a bare, 
boarded floor filled with benches on which sat Fijians. The 
hostess occupied the center and stood before a big wooden kava 
bowl, large enough to do the family washing in. She took a 
cocoanut shell cup, dipped it into the whitish fluid, stirred it 
up and gave it to me. I was in for it, for to refuse or fail 
to drink the full contents, would have been a breach of kava 
etiquette. As she clapped her hands, I poured the stuff down 
without pausing to take a breath. She and her associates liked 
my style, clapped their hands and offered me some more. No 
thanks, that was enough for the first time but it wasn't the 
last. I learned to like it, chewed the dry root, carried pieces 
in my pocket and never there or elsewhere refused a drink. It 
is unfermented, never makes you tipsy, though the natives who 
drink barrels of it for years, get wobbly and have red eyes and 
kava legs instead of milk legs. Later I drank it according to 
tribe rule with those who acted as if the big wood bowl and 
cocoanuts were cut glass and the drink a most refined punch. 

The market was full of kava, taro, yams, bananas, mangoes, 
native fruits and Fiji tea for the fidgety. I heard a queer sound, 
looked around and saw a Fijian blowing on a shell. He was 




FIJI 25 

standing in front of a little coop that looked like a band-stand. 
Here were turtles flipping on their backs, strings of clams, piles 
of odd-shaped fish and a native was cutting up a big shark. 
Nearby a Hindu sat on his haunches with a coil of red-brown to- 
bacco rope before him which he cut in pieces with a knife to suit 
the purse of the buyer. It was pure, native leaf tobacco so the 
natives fingered it, smelled it, tasted it and like white folks took 
it home to smoke or chew. 

HANDS ACROSS THE SEA 

S we walked about in the sun, Mr. Collins pointed out 
the island of Bega in the distance, the fire-walkers' 
home. He was sorry I couldn't see them walk with 
their bare feet on red-hot stones that could boil water 
or cook flesh. I told him it wasn't necessary to go to the island 
for every bare-footed native who trod the sidewalks of Suva 
was a fire-walker. 

Returning to the hotel our talk was interrupted by "That 
sounds American," and a gentleman came forward, put out his 
hand, rushed me across the street to his building, led me up 
stairs and set me down in an easy chair in his office. It was 
Mr. Johnson, an American, who had invested his time and 
money in Fiji to big financial advantage. He said he was glad 
to meet a Yankee whereupon I gave him a flag, and the friend- 
ship formed in his concrete building v/as as firm as two Master 
Masons could make it. As I looked from his office window 
across the harbor he told me of their recent war-scare. For 
fear the German fleet would steam in and do what it did to 
Papeete, he had thrown up and sand-bagged a small mound on 
the water-front side of his building. He made it ready to 
mount a small gun with which he and a few brave souls were 
to demolish the German fleet while the women, children and 
natives fled to the hills for safety. 

SIGHT-SEEING 

TIHERE is a good drive along the harbor front with its 
j shipping and fort, and a jail where we saw short 

and long term convicts working on the roads. Stop- 
ping at a Fiji cemetery on a hill we noticed the graves 
were covered with tapa cloth, white-washed and decorated in 



26 FIJI 

other rude ways that proved the dead were still kindly remem- 
bered. When a Fijian wants good luck in turtle-fishing he 
weeds his ancestor's or relative's grave and drapes it with tapa 
and wreaths. I suggest this plan to some poor fishermen friends 
of mine who have bad luck and come home low-spirited though 
they started out with a quart bottle of whisky. Passing fish- 
ing craft and fish corral fences, we crossed a bridge and came 
to a native village. The Fijians were drying nets and copra 
by their thatched houses. They wore sulus, many of the little 
folks were naked and everyone was smiling and friendly and 
willing to be kodaked for a six-pence. It was the simple life 
of huts embowered in palms, love in a cottage and peace and 
quiet only forty-five minutes from Suva's Broadway. 

We drove through narrow streets with pretty houses and 
flowers, up to Flagstaff the signal station, and then down 
through Hindu villages with red corrugated iron roofs. Women 
and children in gold ornaments and silks sat lazily around 
while the men were at work in the banana patch. On we went 
with the beach on one side and the jungle and cocoanut palms 
on the other, until rounding a point we saw a sublime sunset 
scene on hill and harbor painted in purple, red and gold. 

Every night is movie night but Sunday, and this Friday 
night everybody and his girl went. The seats were thirty-five 
cents for whites in the gallery, who feel themselves above the 
natives, and from six to twelve cents on the ground floor. It 
was a silly American film. The hero was a fool fat man whose 
antics filled the natives with howling delight. Barefoot boys 
with cheeks of tan passed ice-cream around to cool us off while 
the orchestra made us "hot." It consisted of two pieces, a man 
and a girl, who tortured a violin and piano for two hours and 
never once played the same thing in time or tune. 

UP THE REWA RIVER 

ATURDAY morning found us on board a small 
steamer for a trip up the roily Rewa river with 
Captain Cuthbert. Gliding over the reef with its 
clear blue water, we touched at the island of 
Nukulau used as a quarantine station for the coolies who come 
over to work on the Fiji plantations. Like the river's whim our 
boat wound between narrow shores and low banks fringed 



FIJI 27 



with the green of mangoes, bananas, sugar-cane and palms. 
Every turn of the river was like turning the page of a picture- 
book. Birds flew across our bow, and along the bank women 
were washing clothes while children looked on with nothing on. 
Frequently we tied up at a little town to land passengers, food- 
stuffs and lumber. Half a dozen natives lent a hand to unload, 
while old women and girls stood by full dressed in a bath towel 
or less watching us as we watched them. One girl's arm was 
covered with a tattooed name, for the Fijian lover instead of 
carving the name of his lady-love on the trees, tattooes his 
name on her hips and arms. We must have appeared very 
prosy to them while they looked as poetic as Eve and her 
daughters. 

The captain knew every bend of the river and fish in it. 
He zig-zagged in a thousand wriggles in a channel that changed 
its bed as often as a bug-bitten tourist. Nov/ and then a poled 
raft, rude sail boat outrigger, or dug-out canoe drifted by 
loaded with bananas on the way to Suva. Across the river from 
Nausori we dropped a few passengers. The little dock was 
packed with visitors and traders while the wharf slip was full 
of canoes and boats laden with fish and fruit. 

NATIVE TOWNS 

T Nausori we climbed the hill steps, saw the Colonial 
Sugar Company's plant and hiked along the main 
road to the old town. There was an old church that 
a recent hurricane had shoved from pillar to post, 
unmindful of the injunction, "Remove not the ancient land- 
marks." Its efficiency had been only crippled and not killed, 
for on entering we found it was still used for day school and 
Sunday service. There was an absence of beach-bathing cen- 
sorship. I stood on the trunk of a tree that bridged a rivulet, 
and looking down the bank saw some Fiji females disporting 
in the water, their scant clothes hanging on hibiscus limbs which 
were covered while theirs were bare. 

Our attention was diverted from this beauty show by the 
sound of a band. Looking up we saw a cloud of dust and 
hastened to where some Hindus were celebrating their New 
Year's with a naughty nautch dance. Their white turbans and 
robes were splashed with a red stain. They looked like bloody 




28 FIJI 

butchers and there is a story that the dance commemorates a 
long ago outrage in a royal family. 

At Naililili we tied up two hours to wait for the tide. Here 
the French sisters told us of their work and showed us the 
cathedral with its two towers and an audience room so big that 
its few worshippers look like a fly in a pan of milk. Luckily 
we met a Hindu, Sing by name, who could talk English and 
was well acquainted with the natives in the place. He took 
us down a royal road between rows of big shade trees and well- 
kept gardens to the deserted capital where the big chiefs had 
lived before they moved to Bau. A revolutionary hurricane 
had torn down the royal buildings and all that was left were 
the skeleton ruins of the old temple and palace. They looked 
like vaulting posts and parallel bars of some giant gymnasium 
and would make a fine roosting place for some prehistoric bird 
or chicken. 

Things are quiet in Fiji for eight months while the people 
rest up from the hurricane that makes a breezy call between 
the months of December and April. With the regularity of 
the boat call is the call of the hurricane. He is an unwelcome 
visitor but makes a tour of the islands without fail. Coming 
with a blowout announcement the people try to shut him out 
with shutters, doors and windows, but unabashed he comes on 
and in, taking homes, churches and trees as mementoes, sink- 
ing ships and half drowning the protesting inhabitants. He 
is a persona non grata. At Suva they were expecting him, 
kept watching the barometer that was to herald his approach, 
and were getting ready to receive him. Like death or a thief 
in the night he comes suddenly. 

PADDY CONNOR 

IaDDY CONNOR was one of the South Wales convicts 
who settled at Rewa and Bau. These fugitives came 
loaded with deviltry and firearms, helped the native 
chiefs in their wars and received for pay v/hatever 
they demanded.* Some of the men were more savage and de- 
praved than the cannibals and were loathed by everybody. One 
by one they were killed in war, or in fighting against each 
other, until in 1840 no one but Paddy Connor remained, and 




FIJI 



29 




he stood high with the chief king of Rewa. The Fijians were 
so afraid of him that all he asked of life or wife was given 
him. If trouble followed the king arranged to avenge any 
real or fancied wrong done Mr. Connor, and would proceed 
to condemn his enemy and ask him to prepare to meet his doom 
in the bake-oven. After the king died Paddy dropped to his 
proper level and left Rewa. He was so desperate and de- 
praved, so much the hell of all vile villianies that the white, 
decent settlers drove him off the island. He lived and died 
like a dirty dog. All he planned and talked of before he died 
was how he might raise pigs and chickens and bring up the 
size of his family from 48 to 50 children. 

AN INFORMAL CALL 

JNOTHER road led through a live native village that 
offered us the best display of Fiji gardens, houses and 
people we had so far seen. A score of boys were 
bathing and when they saw us, ran to their huts, put 
on their sulus and came to look at us. Entering a big thatched 
house I found its head asleep on a mat. His wife came to the 
door to greet us, dressed in a tapa towel around her waist, 
only this and nothing more. We had so long ceased to be 
shocked that we walked right in and felt at home and were so 
much taken with the house that we took all we could carry away 
as souvenirs. I bought her short grass skirt made of knotted 
seaweed. It encircles the wearer as much as a society girl's 
bathing suit and is just as transparent. A war-club cane that 
would give a shillalah fits took my fancy and I never rested 
until I took her pillow made of a piece of bamboo a foot long 
that stood on two five-inch blocks at each end. It looked like 
a trestle over which the train of thought runs into Dreamland. 
There were mats, kava bowls and cups, but I couldn't get her 
to break up housekeeping just to please me. I begged to take 
her picture since I had taken so much else. She was willing 
and began at once to cover herself from head to foot. I said, 
"No, just as you are," and tried to have her look like a white 
lady at a ball. But she was modest and objected. It was a 
good tribute to the missionary's influence but made a bad pic- 
ture from the artist's point of view. 



30 FIJI 

The old Fiji church resembled a haystack. We stepped 
over a log, entered the door and then stepped down to a floor 
covered with mats which the worshippers used for prayer-rugs. 
Supporting the roof were tree logs bound together with thongs 
of cocoanut fiber. The pulpit stood on a cocoanut mat and 
the platform was decorated with flags. I opened the Bible 
at random, found something I couldn't make out, as I had in 
my own Bible many times at home, and reverently closed with 
a prayer for the success of the Word in every language and 
tongue. 

SAVAGE LETTERS AND LIFE 



TlHE missions have established schools in every village 
I and the natives are able to read and write their own 
language. 

The missionaries invented an orthography to ex- 
press Fiji words and gave the natives a written language. These 
are some of the linguistic snags the tourist runs against. He 
must sound ''b" with "m" before it, and buy a ticket, not for 
Bau but Mbau. As eggs are either soft or hard so the letter ''g" 
is pronounced as soft "ng," "q" as hard ''ng," a distinction 
that seems "N. G." to the puzzled learner, *'D" equals '*nd" 
and "c" is soft ''th," so that instead of referring to Caka- 
bau's monument you say Thakombau. 

The missionary's solemn sermons are very funny to the na- 
tives some times when by mistake he asks God to curse and not 
bless them, or says "vuku" instead of "vuka," not asking God 
to make them ' ' wise ' ' but to ' ' fly. ' ' 

Fijians as a rule have more black hair on the tops of their 
heads than grey matter underneath. Literary taste is limited 
Some traditional poetry has been handed down by father to 
son, and there is dialogue description of ancient heroes and 
"meke" pantomimes of mythology and historical scenes. Art 
sense, like their clothes, is scanty. 

The tender passion is sometimes transcribed. The man 
writes, "If you love me I love you, but if you love me not, 
never mind, neither do I love you ; only let us have certainties. ' ' 
These are good words and well-pronounced, Thisbe writes to 




A KAVA PARTY 



FIJI 




LALI DRUM CALL TO CHURCH 



SUVA, FIJI 



FIJI 31 



her Pyramus, ''Be gentle like the dove, and patient like the 
chicken, and when you have read this, my letter, throw it down 
the drain," 

The South Sea islands are shut out by oceans of space from 
the big mad world and the natives work on simple quiet lines 
of their own. The native often needs less culture and more agri- 
culture, for his mind has been educated at the expense of his 
body. It's a mistake to make a man walk a century in a step. 

The Fijian will not work and is not compelled to, for Na- 
ture gives him clothes, board and lodging free. The Fijian has 
a minimum of dress and a maximum of hair. Yet he dresses 
more modestly than the Melanesians and is better in morals than 
]the Polynesians. 

Once the Fijian regarded himself as well-dressed in his 
smooth-oiled skin, with mop of hair, murky face, thick lips, 
broad nose, bright eyes and beautiful white teeth. Fashions 
have changed. He swings a cane instead of a war-club, wears 
a linen collar and bow tie around his neck instead of whale's 
teeth or boar's tusks, and in lieu of a slit in his ear filled with 
a piece of wood, carries a cigaret or flower, 

On the way to the boat I met Eev. Brown, a white pastor, 
who spoke of the hopeful conditions of church work in general 
and introduced me to the native pastor of the church we had 
just visited. "We sailed away with high ideals of Fiji's his- 
toric Rewa town, blew the boat whistle as we wound down the 
narrow stream, waved to a boat load of Fiji excursionists, who 
were out for a lark at the different towns, skirted shores which 
seemed to crawl with crabs, passed mango thickets the tide had 
left high dry, swung into Lancola bay and docked at Suva. 
Thus ended the day's excursion and exertion. There were many 
pleasant memories of places, people and bugs — one of them a 
kissing-bug that "Cousin Mary" and the captain could tell all 
about if they wanted to, 

DRUMMING UP A CROWD 

UNDAY was a day of bliss and blisters and mountain 

and sea were preaching the power of peace and 

heaven, I heard strange sounds like the beating of 

an empty beer barrel minus its bung. It was the call 

to church and I followed the native procession up hill to the 




32 FIJI 

Wesleyan meeting house. There under a tree stood two boys 
beating "lalis," or native drums, made of logs of tavola wood 
hollowed out in the center like a canoe. They took turns in 
keeping time with club-like drum sticks, giving a stroke now 
heavy or light, then long or short, producing a tone sweet and 
sonorous. This call to service should be adopted by some Amer- 
ican churches which begin the day's worship with an ungodly 
racket of bells that deprives the saint and sinner of spiritual 
and physical rest. 

The Salvation Army could do good work in Suva, but it is 
not allowed for fear if it went out with its big drums and flags 
the natives would desert the churches and all go marching as 
to war. What a fine show they would make, and how they 
would beat the drums. Perhaps it is a wise precaution because 
*' blood and fire" might inflame them and the sound of cymbal 
and base drum recall the war club and cannibal time of their 
ancestors. Maybe they need piano and not forte, the soft pedal 
instead of the big drum-major stick. They love their lali drum. 
It is made of a log of wood, boat-shaped and very resonant. 
"When the lali is beaten by two strenuous youths as if they were 
pounding the devil out of the wood, it is a cheerful sight and 
sound. 

CHURCH SERVICES 



E entered the church, sat by the door and watched 
the natives as they came up the street and climbed 
the steps. There were gray-haired old men in sulus 
and undershirts; middle-aged men in sulu, shirt and 
duck coat; dandies with sulu, shirt, pongee coat, pants, col- 
lars, fancy ties and canes, their oiled hair dyed red, brown or 
yellow. The men all sat on the right side of the church. On 
the left were the women, bare-legged and footed, dressed in 
pink or white holokus, silk or linen skirts, blouses and wrap- 
pers. Some wore ferns and flowers in their hair, while others 
wore hats that would do for an American Easter service. While 
they were all sitting in reverent silence, the native police en- 
tered in blue blouses and red trimmings and white skirts van- 
dyked around the edges. 



FIJI 33 

V 
Rev. Small, the white pastor, with two native assistants 
came in and knelt within the pulpit rail. As they rose, the 
organist struck the key, an old woman lifted the tune and there 
rose a volume of melody that would make an ordinary church 
choir choke to death with envy. Feminine treble mingled with 
masculine baritone and bass, combining a harmony of head and 
heart. "Whether it was Scripture set to music, Moody or San- 
key hymns, ''Lead Kindly Light," or ''Open "Wide the Door," 
there was a fitting setting, for the sky was cloudless and I 
looked through the open door over the city roofs and trees to 
the bay and hill in the distance. 

They listened to the preacher as if they were there to be 
saved and did not show off and stare at every late comer. We 
left to look in the cathedral, kodak the police force, as they 
stood in front of their station, and attend the Presbyterian 
church on Goodenough street. That seems a good enough name 
for the church and its members, although it was named after 
a man who had a bad enough chapter in his life. It appears 

that this Captain G stole the notable Christian woman 

Tapairu-ariki and a number of native women from Rarotonga 
and left them at Aitutaki. "When missionary "Williams visited 
the island he saw this fair young girl and took her to her na- 
tive land. Captain G had been afraid that his vile 

abduction would be found out and so refrained from announc- 
ing the discovery of the island. We sat by the side door look- 
ing out on flowers and vines. There was an earnest sermon 
followed by the Communion service. "What a change in fifty 
years! Then a human feast of flesh and blood, now the sym- 
bolic one of bread and wine from Him who died that all might 
live. 

You can get all the leading brands of Christianity at Suva, 
but I was taken up with one that some had branded as a fake. 
It was the Seaman's Mission held over a store in a hall, 
and there were books, papers and innocent games for the sail- 
ors on shore. As a South Sea sailor, I entered and approach- 
ing the platform, and was met by Mr. Page, who was conduct- 
ing the work at his own charge. He explained a big Bible map 
hanging over the platform, gave me samples of Scripture lit- 
erature which he handed out with his free gospel, and among 
the leaflets was one published in Minneapolis. He seemed very 



34 FIJI 

sincere and offered me a photo of his chapel and congregation. 
I was told he wasn't exactly "orthodox," but hell is full of 
orthodox believers who say ''Lord, Lord," and do not the 
things He has commanded. Always and everywhere what does 
good, is good, whether it carries the official church imprimatur 
or not. 

SUNDAY OBSERVATIONS 



AFTER dinner Mr. Collins sent up his American red 
racing auto for a spin, and the beauty of the scenery 
was a commentary on the sermon we heard in the 
morning. It was up and down hill, through Hindu 
settlements with natives under the trees, by native bush ancj 
forest and the Experimental Station where the government is 
experimenting with trees and plants to see how best they may 
grow. I suggest they add a cool weather branch. We stopped 
at a Fijian village and at a Solomon Islander chief's hut. It 
was a zig-zag of black and white straw decoration. I looked 
in the door and found him wrapped up in a mat, snoring and 
sound asleep, with other mats piled on his head and feet to 
keep the flies off. The heat was 115 degrees and hot enough 
to dry up the bark of a dog and curl its tail. But the chief 
slept. He was a wise Solomon to keep comfortable that way. 

At Rewa, visited by boat the day before, we had a 
cool drink with the proprietor Ives and were sorry he could 
not make it an ice-cream. On our return, rounding a curve, 
we had a close call with an auto driven by a woman who took 
the wrong side of the road. Many women can run their hus- 
band, but not a car, and when they do, it is often like their 
talk and thought, on the wrong side of the question. Crocker 
was our crack chauffeur. He raced us around the town, through 
the parks, up the hills and by Lorillard's mansion where our 
Old Grlory flew red, white and blue against the tropical sky. 

The roads here are very bad, but the inroads of disease very 
good. In 1875 General Measles wiped out 40,000 of the inhab- 
itants. The natives journey to the grave along the routes of 
tuberculosis, yaws, skin diseases, croup, rheumatism, elephant- 
iasis, dysentery and lepers form one per cent. 

While more sensitive to cold and hunger than a European, 



FIJI 



the Fijian has greater physical endurance. He doesn't care 
to work and lets the coolie take his place, but when there is 
any real feat of strength to be accomplished, he can lift a 
heavier load, throw a weight or hurl a spear farther than a 
white. There is a record of a native whose canoe was capsized 
in mid-channel and he survived, although he was in the water 
48 hours without support, with nothing to eat or drink, blis- 
tered by the sun, in danger of sharks and his face raw with 
brushing the salt water from his eyes. 

There was no time for lally-gagging after supper for the 
lalis sounded again for church. I followed the crowd and sat 
down by the door to keep cool. But that seat was reserved for 
the Fijians who have caste feeling towards the whites, so that 
in a way I was a castaway and was ushered up to the choir. 
A sailor came in and sat in the chief's seat but was coolly ush- 
ered next to me where he could see and be seen. 

There was more good music after which Dr. Small talked 
on "night prowlers" showing how one Fijian sinner could de- 
stroy much good, respect and influence if he took it into his 
head to steal someone's watch, wife or daughter. There was 
an impromptu baby baptism after the sermon. The father was 
a big policeman named Saul and the little dark mother who 
stood by his side held her baby as proudly as if it were a 
princess. The Scripture and prayer were given and the little 
Fijian piece of femininity was christened, "Anna Jane." My 
part in the service was limited to kissing the baby with a "God 
bless you," and a hand-shake to the parents. 

RUBBER TREES AND NECKS 

[HROUGH Johnson's introduction to his friend Powell, 
we "rubber-necks" were invited to visit a rubber 
plantation. The planter sent his steam launch with 
Hindu native boatman, and after early breakfast we 
started for Wiando, fifteen miles distant. Over clearest water and 
coral and by picturesque islands, we entered the Wiando river, 
banked by thicket, overarched by jungle and vine and unlike 
any Florida or other stream I had ever sailed. Landing at the 
Hindu settlement, we proceeded to the rubber factory in Indian 
file, the natives leading with our luggage of solid and liquid 




36 FIJI 

provision on their shoulders. The plant was in full blast. 
Coolies were carrying buckets of milk-white rubber and empty- 
ing them in pans where it soon hardened. It looked good 
enough to drink and recalled the early time on the farm when 
I used to sneak in the dairy and stick my fingers in the sweet 
cream and cat-like lick it off. When I stuck my bare hand in 
this, the rubber hardened, and I pulled it out with a rubber 
glove on. The sap soon gets thick and hard and is taken from 
the pan like a piece of Johnny cake, pressed dry between roll- 
ers, and hung up in the smoke house like ham. After it is 
cured, it is packed in boxes for London. Mr. Powell gave me 
several sheets of rubber and they were so clean and of such 
high grade that I wished my auto was there to have a set of 
real rubber tires made for it. He took us over his plantation, 
told us how the ground was cultivated and the trees set out and 
cared for. A native cuts a ''Y" mark in the tree, inserts the 
tin gutter tube and the white "milk" drips into a little cup. 
Afterwards he collects it very carefully in a bucket and takes 
it to the factory. The worst thing in this splendid plantation 
was the government road to Suva, a dense grass jungle, six 
feet high, thick and impenetrable, the only "high" grade im- 
provements for which $15,000 had been spent. Even way out 
in heathen here there was an illustration of graft, misuse and 
abuse of public funds. 

Powell was a kind of chief to these indentured Hindus who 
came over under contract to work five years for the privilege 
of returning or remaining longer. He employs Hindu help 
because the native Fijian won't work. His authority was un- 
limited and he had the right to marry, doctor, divorce, beat or 
bury his help. The Hindus are hard workers and there is little 
trouble so long as they are sober and not jealous of each other's 
women. The coolie makes about a shilling a day, but there 
are some other compensations. The English immigration law 
allows one woman to three or four men and there is always 
strife to get her. The overseer plays his trump card by prom- 
ising the woman to the man who does the most work. In this 
way he gets a wife for a day or week as he pleases. 

As it was near noon and necessary for us to return before 
the low tide left us high and dry, Powell said we would have 
a little lunch. We climbed into a row boat, were poled across 



FIJI 37 



the river and climbed up the bank to a spreading mango tree 
where there was a spread fit for the gods. Mats were laid over 
the brush and banana leaves to sit on. Though it was no sav- 
age Fijian feast, there were five kinds of drink, as many meats, 
and bread, cheese, cake and fruit enough to stock a store. Alex- 
ander had a feast and Dryden wrote a poem of praise on it, but 
he should have seen ours. Only Homer or some great epic or 
epicurean poet could describe it. Every one of us did it poetic 
justice. Just think of being in the heart of Fiji and quietly 
eating instead of being savagely eaten. It was all so good that 
we couldn't hurry and so found an illustration of the truth, 
"time and tide wait for no man." Before we could enter Suva 
harbor our boat keel grated on the coral reefs, we had to change 
positions and our sailors were forced to jump overboard to 
lighten the boat and push and drag us over. 

CARNEGIE AND CURS 

jUVA is literary. She reads cables, papers and each 
other's character, and what I thought was an auto 
garage proved to be the Carnegie Library. The lady 
attendant said there were 500 volumes for whites and 
half castes. Some of the books must have been unusually musty 
and dry for the last hurricane took off the roof and soaked the 
shelves. I saw the high water mark of literature and took a 
folder that looked like a leaf from the "Tempest." Nearby 
was a neat building with square and compass, a sure sign that 
when it comes to a "square deal" there are many of the 
brethren worthy and well-qualified to exert the same helpful 
influence here for God, home and native land that has girdled 
the world with Masonic love, light and law. 

DOGS 

SIUVA, next to Constantinople, leads a dog's life. The 
I poor curs would gladly flee the flies or fly from the 
fleas, but they can't and are kept busy scratching, 
licking their sores and remembering they are dogs. 
While the auto honks them, driver lashes them and pedestrian 
curses them, the native children love them. I saw one little 




38 FIJI 



fellow of seven, naked but for the shirt which came down to 
his brown hips, holding a poor little white dog in his arms and 
as he pattered along he sang, ' ' It 's a Long Way to Tipperary. ' ' 
He had the music but slipped on Leicester Square, yet his little 
heart got there. 

CLUBS 



FIJI is the home of the war-club, the original ''big 
stick." The war club is no longer popular, but the 
society club is and wields a crushing influence. Suva 
is the snob's paradise and social life is only pleasant 
if you belong to certain cliques and clubs. Some of the best 
people in the world are here and some of the worst. Thackeray 
could have found material for another chapter on "snobs." 
One of our party went to the tennis grounds and sat alone for 
several hours. He was a good player and could have been 
used, but was not invited. I suppose he had been spotted as 
an "American" when he did not pronounce the word glass 
"glaws" and banana "bahnahnah. " 

Mr. Foy, a dignified banker from New Zealand, not related 
to Eddie Foy, the comedian, took us up a hill to a club house 
where there was a fine view of the sea, city, hills and hun- 
dreds of trees and flowers. There were books and pictures, 
a cool breeze and a drink of something, not kava, that left a 
pleasant taste in the mouth and memory. "My word," it was 
fine. What? "Well, rather." 

BOOZERS 

SAW his excellency of Bau, "big chief Sour Bread." 
He was taking a strong drink at the hotel bar, though 
none of his tribe are permitted the same pleasure. 
This is the chief's chief delight, the law wisely re- 
stricting the Fiji native to kava, water, tea and coffee. Per- 
haps it was for his moral good, but probably because the white 
man wants most of the liquor himself. The bars are full of 
booze and of men just as full, and clubs and hotel circles are 
much the same. They must begin and end the day with a 




FIJI 39 

whisky and soda. Maybe they think they are men of iron con- 
stitution who can't drink water for fear they will rust. And 
now abideth billiards, cricket and booze, but the greatest of 
these is booze. 

Saturday, not Sunday, ''is day of all the week the best," 
for its half holiday is religiously devoted to playing cricket 
and drinking tea. I watched the game from the grandstand, 
the only grand thing to me about it, except for the playing of 
Collins, the veteran and victor. Some Fijians were in the game 
and I thought how long the distance from cannibalism to 
cricket, yet both pastimes wielded the club and were ''killing" 
to a novice. Our party sat half asleep and for fear we might 
fall off the bench and break it, or our necks, Mr. Johnson ad- 
journed to the Grand Pacific where we all took tea and revived 
our drooping spirits. I know there is no accounting for tastes 
and sadly confess my preference for baseball. I am glad Dick- 
ens wrote about "Cricket on the Hearth" and not on the green. 

The day's work for the white clubman here is small. His 
ambition is to see how much whisky he can hold and still carry 
a billiard cue or cricket bat. In this merry-go-round of days 
and drinks, the only one who works and hustles is the Hindu. 

MERMAIDS 



THE Fijians are charter members of the I. W. W. — "I 
won't work" society. However lazy they may be, their 
women are workers. She is the daily and nightly 
drudge, to nurse her lord or baby, cook, make tapa 
or fish with nets. One rainy day, when their husbands were 
under the hotel veranda keeping their hair dry, I saw some 
native women in the bay. At first I thought they were swim- 
ming and splashing water on each other. On looking closer I 
saw them string a net in a semi-circle. One held it down in 
the middle and one at each end. Then two walked from the 
ends beating and splashing the water and driving the fish into 
the nets which they drew up on the shore. As the fish flopped, 
the women skilfully caught them, bit off their heads, if they 
were small, and threw them into a basket which hung at their 
waist. 



40 FIJI 



RELICS 




\n. BARKER, editor of the ''West Pacific Herald," 
runs a good paper and has a very large collection of 
books on South Sea travel. He gave me a memorial 
edition of his pa,per printed on tapa cloth and when 
he learned I was interested in curios took me to his father- 
in-law's, a Mr. Turner, who has one of the finest private col- 
lections of Fijian, South Sea curios and antiquities. There was 
a model of a big war-canoe under a shed, and while I sat 
on the porch looking towards the sea, I thought of the Fijian 
bravery that compared so well with modern navy valor. 
''Paddle your own canoe," and they did for love and hate to 
visit or to wreak vengeance. 

The Museum is a wonder and delight to the tourist, citizen 
and native Fijian. It is the best illustrated history on Fiji I 
•found in town. Professor Colman Wall has done so much to 
collect the material and knows so much about it I hope he may 
live to get new building walls and write a volume we may all 
have in our libraries. He told me the native folklore and 
learnedly discussed the history, habits and religion of the 
Fijians and spoke of the work of the Fijian Society as he led 
me through the rooms. 

FACTS 

IJI ^was discovered by the Dutch navigator, Tasman, 
in 1643; visited by Captain Cook in 1769; settled by 
missionaries in 1835; offered to Great Britain by the 
native king Thakombau in 1859 and was refused; 
English settlers set up a constitutional government under the 
king in 1871 and Great Britain took over the islands in 1874. 
Great Britain got the Fiji islands, but her G. B. has been 
variously interpreted as "grab bag" and "grand bounce." 
Thakombau claimed to be chief of all the Fiji islands. He was 
chief of Rewa, yet he handed over the independent Colo people 
and when they naturally objected they were suppressed with 
"killing" kindness. 

It is a Crown colony governed by the governor and legis- 
lative councilor ; has an area of 7,400 square miles, and popula- 
tion of nearly 130,000. In Suva, the capital, the population 





FIJI 41 

is approximately 1,300 wliites, 3,500 Indians and 1,800 Fijians 
and Pacific islanders. The climate is moist and tropical and 
the chief products are copra, bananas, pineapples and maize. 

FAITH 

ROM cradle mat to grave pit the Fijian's religion was 
a worship of water, fire and shark gods. They worked 
out their innate ideas of salvation as their wild sur- 
roundings permitted. 
He believed in ghosts, wizards, fairies, evil eyes, seers and 
priests, in apparitions of slain men, fallen women and those 
who had died in labor. Bachelors had no show in heaven where 
they were pursued by a great woman who caught them and 
dashed them to pieces on a stone. Women who had not been 
tattooed were chased by their own sex who tore and cut them 
with shells or scraped and made them into bread for the gods. 
The ancient Fijians were not idolators. They were familiar 
with the idea of deity and gave Him names which indicated 
his character and habits. They built their temples on a site 
where a chief had been killed. They reverenced some stones 
as shrines of the gods and I saw a stone at the Suva museum 
which suggested phallic worship. 

When they went into the Delphic oracle business, they di- 
vined the good or bad of the future by the leg which trembled 
first, whether a man sneezed from his right or left nostril, by 
chewing a leaf or observing which way a drop of water ran. 

The priest's religious tabu was a source of social and polit- 
ical graft. He worked the old gag of appealing to the super- 
stition of the natives. He could pray good or bad luck on 
them, and for a consideration catch the devil or evil spirit, 
place him under a pile of stones and hold him there. If the 
natives failed to dig up, he dug up the stones and let the devil 
loose on them. 

WOMEN'S MORALS 

TIHE Fijians believed women were made to work and 
I men to fight, and both were kept busy. Women were 
very cheap. You could get a good one for a gun, and 
for a few extra bullets they would throw in an extra 
girl for good measure. A native wanted a musket and offered 



42 FIJI 

two hogs for it, but one of the hogs ran away, so he put his wife i 
in its place. An old man of sixty often comforted his declining I 
days by living with one or two girls who were not one-fourth 
of his age. Jealous rival wives amused themselves by biting 
and cutting off each other's noses. 

Tribal conscience and not the Ten Commandments was the 
standard of morality. To be or not be immoral was a ques- 
tion of race rather than law or religion. The Fijians were not 
naturally hot-blooded or lascivious, but when their native inno- 
cent pleasures were prohibited by the missionaries, so few and 
unsatisfactory substitutes were offered that lax morality en- 
sued, j 

Before the missionary came to Fiji the sexes were separated , 
and slept in different huts. He taught them the idea of "fam- i 
ily life" and it was so novel and interesting that it often re- 
sulted in unlawful loves. The church so stigmatized free love 
that the poor unfortunate girls resorted to the ''wise women," 
professional abortionists, who with reed instrument, massage 
or deadly drug committed the crime of infanticide so common 
in our cities. 

Fiji women are proud of their locks which they comb up 
into a stunning pompadour. One often sees them wearing little 
pigtail braids of hair on one or both sides of the face. This is 
a sign that the wearer is a Simon pure virgin. Yet signs are 
not always infallible nor are the wearers. So many carry the 
sign without the sanctity that a number of indignant citizens 
upbraided these braided beauties, hustled them to one side and 
with cruel, virtuous shears committed a ' ' Rape of the Lock. ' ' 

CANNIBALISM 

JROFESSOR WALL showed me canoes, paddles, spears, 
war-clubs, dress, ornaments, mats, fans, sinnet, uten- 
sils, cannibal dishes, forks and ware. It was impos- 
sible to buy or beg souvenirs, but he kindly allowed 
me to take pictures of what I wanted for my book and lectures. 
That I might enter into the spirit of the cannibal, I put on a 
Fijian wig and dress, held a cannibal fork in one hand and a 
platter in the other that contained a Solomon islander's carved 
head. 





bANNIBAL FORK AND PLATTER 



SUVA, FIJI 



r • 




,^ 



feiiti 



EX-CANNIBAL CHIEF 



FIJI 



I 



FIJI 43 



I can't begin to tell how horrible it all seemed. A friend 
had told me to be sure and eat a nice fat Fijian girl baby, to 
get and make a new sensation. This was the nearest approach 
and it was enough. What savage thoughts had been under that 
hair-wig? What missionary heart and lungs had found a rest- 
ing place in that wooden platter? What giblets or devilled 
kidney of some early globe-trotter had dangled from that 
wooden fork? Was it stew, ragout, baked, roasted, boiled or 
fried? 

A little more than half a century ago the history of Fiji 
was more blood-curdling and hair-raising, than any Wild West 
dime novel. The country was blacker than darkest Africa, and 
Jesse James was a saint compared to the bloody natives. The 
whole group of 250 islands was a branch hell on earth and its 
cannibal chiefs could have done justice to Satan's position if 
they had been needed down there. If the Devil had ever gone 
on a vacation he could have substituted any one of them and 
the ''lost" would not have known the difference. 

The Fijians were rivals with the other islanders in sin and 
took the prize. The doctrine of original sin must have come 
from Fiji, for its fine arts were to steal, lie and murder. In 
the pleasures of polygamous practice they preceded the Mor- 
mons. Their women were a necessary evil — sodden slaves and 
damned from their first breath. When her brutal husband had 
exhausted his deviltry and died the poor wife, instead of being 
permitted to live in peace was strangled, and that his soul 
might still nag hers after death, her dead body was used as a 
lining to his grave to make his old carcass rest easier. 

Forlorn and ship-wrecked sailors were always in demand. 
A man became his own dentist, saying his ''black tooth" ached 
and went out on the war path with a club and brought home 
some dead man or woman. This cannibal coroner always found 
somebody whom he fixed with a proper verdict. 

Nature had spread a big bounteous table of fruits and veg- 
etables, but like old Israel they longed for the flesh-pots. They 
were not vegetarians, and since there was little beef and mut- 
ton to be had, they ate each other, although showing a pref- 
erence for the white meat shipped to them by the Missionary 
Societies. Instead of eating him alive they cooked him alive 
in their hot stone bake-ovens. 



44 FIJI 

The cannibals liked Captain Cook's pigs very much, but 
"long pig" better. A man was called "long pig" in contrast 
to "real pig." He was never eaten raw but cut up, baked or 
boiled with some fine herbs as savoury stuffing to prevent indi- 
gestion. The anthropophagi guys are gone now, but the plant 
of that name remains. We observe a pure food law, but they 
painted his face, made him look alive and set him up in a sitting 
position. A prominent man stood by his side, acted smart and 
said bitter things he hadn't dared to when his victim was alive. 
After this verbal roast he handed the body over to the chief's 
chef who peppered, salted and fixed it up a la very fine Fiji, and 
shoved it in the earth, having filled the body with hot stones 
so it would be thoroughly cooked. 

The Fijian couldn't love his neighbor, but loved to hate 
him. He was a true Ishmaelite and his hand, with a war-club 
in it, was raised against every man. The "death lali's" fune- 
ral march was a favorite tune. Little streams were often filled 
with canoes bearing such friendly gifts from one chief to an- 
other as a dozen whole dead men, or rib-roasts, bloody joints, 
arms and legs all freshly torn from the victim's body and 
nicely wrapped up in clean fresh leaves to serve as the last 
course to some big banquet. 

Cannibalism was a chief institution, regarded as good form 
in Fijian society and looked upon as a refinement. There were 
drink offerings of pig, turtle and human blood. Sometimes a 
woman was cut up alive and kept in a big dish so as to lose no 
blood. Dead men were set up, covered with black powder, and 
with wigs on their heads were paraded around as if alive. Tor- 
ture was taxed to its utmost and parts of the living victim were 
cut off and eaten before his eyes. Sometimes they were gen- 
erous and offered him his own cooked flesh to eat. Later his 
skull was made into a drinking bowl and his shin-bones pared 
for sail-needles. 

The chief cook and carver had different ways of preparing 
and serving ' ' bokolo, ' ' human flesh. When it was to be boiled 
he cut the flesh from the bones; when it was to be folded in 
leaves and placed in the oven, he took his butcher knife of slit 
bamboo, gashed down the abdomen, sliced the neck down to the 
bone and twisted off the head. 



FIJI 45 

The epicures of the tribes preferred the arm above the el- 
bow, thigh and heart. Those who were very dainty, in 
absence of ancient cheese and cold-storage fowls, opened graves 
and partook of the putrescent flesh. These savages displayed 
some good taste in their table manners because instead of eat- 
ing the human hash with their fingers they used a wooden four- 
tine fork. 

From the time of Lucullus men have been great gorman- 
dizers and have gloried in their shame. I have heard men 
boast of the number of cigars they could smoke, glasses of beer 
they could drink and regular meals and side lunches they could 
stow away in a day. Of such it is said, "Whose God is their 
belly, whose end is destruction." One of the big men in their 
history, an omnivorous, carnivorous "bokolo "-eater, had a name 
as long as his bill of fare, Ra Undreundre of Rakiraki. Dur- 
ing his life he had eaten 900 bodies all by himself and commem- 
orated and kept count of his human feasts by erecting a stone 
for each man eaten. 

A fighting game always gave them a good appetite, and 
after they had eaten a few of their enemies they took the rest 
home, put ropes around their necks and dragged them to the 
*'bure" or temple where they were offered to the gods, after 
which they were cooked and divided among the people. Among 
the men the Friar Tuck priests came in for a large share. Piles 
of whitened bones showed how many bodies had been offered 
the gods. An enemy's body was treated with every indignity, 
lay naked outside the temple and the orgies were celebrated 
beggared decent description. 

As the women came out to welcome the Hebrew warriors 
with song and dance, the Fijian women greeted the victors 
with words, gestures and dances vilely obscene. Virgins of- 
fered unspeakable insult to the dead bodies and Plato's black 
horse of passion ran wildly with unbridled lust. Frequently 
the victim was tied up alive and thrown into the oven. It was 
thought a natural death spoiled the flavor and made the body 
unfit to eat. The common people were not invited to the 
"bokolo" feasts unless there was a big spread, and even then 
had to be satisfied with tough hands and heads. Women did 
not grace the festal board except when they were dead and 
brought there to be eaten. They were believed to be more ten- 



46 FIJI 

der and sweet in death than life, especially when they were 
well-cooked. The men would say, "Please pass me a little more 
of Mary's arm or Anna's thigh." The expression, ''It is good 
as bokolo" applied to anything signified it was first-class. 

BAU 




AT Ban there was a kind of amphitheater with stone 
seats for the spectators. In front was a large brain- 
ing stone. The victim was carried by his arms and 
legs at awful speed and hurled headfirst against the 
stone. As his bones broke, his blood spilled and his brains 
splashed, the delighted spectators uttered yells of delight such 
as are heard at football games, prize and bull fights. 

HORRIBLE DEATHS 

T was thought the king's house would sink and fall 
in unless there was some one to hold it up. To pre- 
vent such an appalling catastrophe strong and healthy 
men were buried alive, stuck into the post holes to 
clasp them in position, reversing the Samson process of hold- 
ing the pillars up. If you asked them how that could do it 
when the men were dead, it was replied their virtuous sacri- 
fice made the gods feel kindly and they would take a hand 
when the dead man lost his grip. Naturally the poor victim 
objected, whereupon he was told it was a great honor to have 
been born into the world for this special occasion. 

Infanticide put the Fijians in the class of Herod's slaugh- 
ter of the innocents. Children who had escaped retaliated, so 
that when the father and mother grew old and sick, instead of 
caring for them, they strangled and clubbed them, left them 
to die of exposure or buried them alive. 

If one did not die from disease, treachery or old age, they 
made him a friendly visit and said he was all in, 'twas time to 
die, he could prepare to meet his gods and the family was ready 
to go in deep mourning for him. If a young man had a hurt 
that failed to heal quickly, or a young girl was troubled with 
some slow disease, they were both informed that they must 
die sooner or later, that it was only a question of time, that 



FIJI 47 



now was a good time, and they must hurry up and be mur- 
dered for the grave was ready to receive them. So they were 
cracked on the ' ' coco ' ' with a cocoanut club. 

When a big or little chief was about to die, a grave was 
dug according to his size, and the number of victims to be 
buried with him. We put grass on our graves, but the grass 
the old chief wanted was "all flesh is grass," and his dear 
wives who had kept him warm in bed were to line his grave 
or be a kind of easy mattress for him to lie on. Often his 
wives were strangled before he was quite dead that he might 
be dead sure he would have plenty of company. And would 
you believe it, these women wanted to go, not because they loved 
him, were tired of bearing children, poulticing his stone bruises 
or killing the creatures in his hair, but because of the living 
death and curse which they would suffer if they survived him. 
Since she who was strangled here was to be one of his first 
and best wives in the future Fiji state of felicity, she told her 
children she was ready for the hangman's noose and strangler's 
knot. They were dressed in their Sunday best, were choked 
to death, greased with oil, painted red and hustled to the grave. 

As to the old chief he was next, even though he pleaded to 
live in peace since his wives were dead. His face was blacked 
as if it were a pair of boots; his hair already on end with 
fright, was curled up a little higher; his ivory ornaments were 
hung about him; the best piece of tapa was wrapped around 
him; and then when he was dressed fit to kill they shuffled off 
his mortal coil, wrapped him in mats, and with weeping and 
wailing, he was gently placed on the new mown human ** grass" 
and the dust was piled on him. Tears were shed for weeks, 
forests were made "tabu" for his departed spirit and bushels 
of fingers were cut off little children's hands and stuck all 
about the dead chief's house as a mark of respect. 

Everything of importance was begun with a sacrifice. Blood 
was the grease to make it go, but it must be human and not 
animal blood. We christen a warship with a bottle of cham- 
pagne. If a chief had a new canoe and wanted to give it a 
good send-off dedication, he killed ten men and baptized it 
with their blood. If a new canoe was to be launched, instead 
of using trees as rollers, he placed live men face downwards 
and slid the boat over their bruised and bleeding bodies. It 



48 



FIJI 



is fact, not fiction, that when Tanoa returned from a good war 
hunt his canoe cargo was composed of dead enemies. They 
were to be eaten on the regular bill of fare, and for delicacies 
and side dishes nice fat baby boys and girls, whom he had 
taken as tribute or killed, were strung up on the masts and 
oars. These are not Munchausen tales, but things which oc- 
curred as late as 1840 and were reported by such au-thority as 
Wilkes, Mauray, Dana, Pickering and "Williams. 




CIVILIZED SAVAGES 



LL this seems horribly untrue and we thank God it 
has ceased, but Phariseeism is bad business. WhiLe 
we rejoice that we are not as these poor Publican 
Fijians were, how much better are we in comparison 
now'^ Did they murder and mutilate in war? That was ping- 
pong compared with the things cultured, civilized. Christian 
armies are doing in Europe. They killed their unborn chil- 
dren. What of the crime of infanticide in so-called respect- 
able society today? They slaughtered people to eat, we com- 
mit gluttonous suicide. They stole, but it was petty larceny 
viewed in the light of trust dealings. They lied for pleasure, 
we for a profession. They were licentious, we run assignation 
boats, trains and hotels. They danced barbarously, we beastly. 
They wore few clothes, but where they were necessary, and 
were more modest in life than some of us in look. They drank 
kava. It was mother's milk compared with the poison we pour 
down that is strong enough to eat up a copper-bottom jar. If 
a child cried at a chief's kava party it was strangled. We fill 
up on dope at a wine-supper and then pump two or three full 
of lead. They ate up their dead enemies. We let them rot 
and fester on the ground to spread pestilence. 



A MODERN MIRACLE 

HAT a change God hath wrought through the "fool- 
ishness of preaching." In 1835 two Wesleyan mis- 
sionaries landed at Lekemba willing to die if needs 
be to tell the simple Gospel story of love. A magic 
change followed. Within 35 years the Fijians substituted God 




FIJI 49 



for gore, Bible for bones, ehiireh for carnage, Sabbath for 
slaughter and Christ for cannibalism. Today they set a good 
example to many white Christians who profess more and pos- 
sess less. They go to church, Sunday school and prayer meet- 
ings, will not dance or bargain on Sunday and have the form 
and spirit of true godliness. In spite of white traders, fugitives 
from justice, "black birders" and others, who have set them 
bad examples, they are kind, generous, hospitable and honest. 

It's a long way from cannibalism to Christianity, but the 
modern missionary was a miracle-worker and did much in a 
few years. Standing by Thakombau's monument in Suva I 
remembered that this great chief, who was king of the cannibal 
islands, began his bloody reign by grabbing his own mother by 
the throat and strangling her to death, and that at the end of 
his career he was converted to Christianity and lived and died 
a repentant follower of the Redeemer. A Wesleyan church now 
stands where the heathen temple stood, and the great stone which 
was so often stained with brains and blood has been converted 
into a baptismal font. 

Today one is safer in the Fiji islands than in some parts 
of our big cities. I heard that a woman with guide attendant 
had made a long interior island trip, and was free from insult 
or harm. Now, instead of going to war the native goes to movies ; 
paddles bananas on a raft instead of dead human bodies in a 
canoe; eats marmalade, not missionaries; wears an artistic suli\ 
and not a savage smile; beats lali drums to call to church in- 
stead of cannibal feasts and beats time to hymns with his foot 
and not war-beats on his enemy's head with a club, and loves to 
be a soldier and play cricket. 

RAIN AND REEF 

WOULD have left Suva with the wrong impression 

if it hadn't rained. They told me of a rainfall of 

thirty-two inches in four hours, but that was like the 

flood long ago. So the rain began and it rained every 

day and night. Our hotel was a '* Bleak House. " One evening I 

heard a sound like a waterfall or coming carriage, but looking 

out could see nothing. Nearer and nearer it came, two blocks 

away, then one and I saw it turn the corner, cross to the right 




50 FIJI 

and left and sweep by. It was the rain. It does this for a 
week at a time and everything is wet but the Fijian's head and 
hair. He will allow the water to splash to his knees and pour 
over his oiled shoulders but he will put a handkerchief over 
his head or wrap his coat over his crop of hair. It wouldn't 
hurt to wash it now and then, but each hair must be in order. 
The glory of a woman and a Fijian is in their hair. He would 
make a good *'headliner" in American vaudeville. He raises 
bananas, sugar-cane and hair and thinks more of the last crop 
than all the others. Speaking from bald-headed experience I 
think they have much to be proud of and I would feel the same 
if I had half as much. 

A coral reef is a dread to the sea-captain, a delight to the 
scientist, a source of income to the shell merchant and slug 
collector and a fine subject for an artist and poet. One morn- 
ing Mr. Collins took us in his boat and his two Fijians rowed 
us two miles out to the coral reef where we men rolled up our 
pants and waded while the ladies were carried in the bronze arms 
of the boatmen. Once there we explored the coral caverns and 
crannies where blue fish darted and crawfish crawled in the 
clearest water. We picked up live coral, bright shells, breath- 
ing anemones, purple star-fish, slugs or sea worms which are 
Chinese delicacies, and one of the Fijians thrust his hand be- 
hind a rock and pulled out a fish that resembled a slice of rain- 
bow. The rainbow lives here in the curve of the coral isle, its 
sand and surrounding waters. The water colors are violet, 
green, forget-me-not blue and the lapis lazuli lagoons are a 
dream. It was hard for us to walk over the sharp and rough 
coral in our shoes, but our barefooted boatmen moved as easily 
as if they were on a sidewalk. A live coral cut or scratch is 
bad, and the cut of a fresh dead coral is poisonous and causes 
the foot and leg to swell. 

All of us had been so long and intensely interested we 
took no notice of the tide and when we started for the boats, the 
water that had barely covered our ankles was waist deep. "We 
men waded, holding up our coats, umbrellas and kodaks. The 
women were as willing to be carried by the big husky Fijians 
as the natives were anxious to carry them. So climbing up 
and sitting pig-a-back on their shiny brown shoulders these 
"old women of the sea" were bobbingly carried to the boat. 



FIJI 51 



It was great sport for us and offered a chance for some good 
pictures had it not begun to rain and pour so that our boat 
was a welcome ark of safety though it had no roof. 

Approaching the shore we met a raft of Fijians. They 
yelled, swallowed raindrops, pushed each other overboard, came 
up with hands full of mud which they daubed over each other's 
body, pasted hair and faces so they had to jump overboard and 
wash off. They acted like a lot of school boys in a swimming 
hole and though grown up showed how simple and childish the 
natives are. 

We, too, had a jolly time in this new and never to be for- 
gotten experience and when we landed and marched up to 
the hotel furnished more amusement to the town people than 
the "rafters" had to us. "We looked like beachcombers, drowned 
rats or shipwrecked survivors. Our shoes, clothes and hats 
were spoiled, but we had a good time and it was worth all it 
cost, and when the crowd laughed at us we echoed it back. 

A CLOSE CALL 

SIR BICKHAM SWEET ESCOTT, K. C. M. G., etc., 
has his headquarters in Suva. I phoned his Excel- 
lency's secretary for an interview to pay my respects 
as an American citizen and visitor, and after unroll- 
ing a ball of red tape he made the appointment. Next morn- 
ing "L" and I started afoot to see him, not in auto or car- 
riage, but in white duck suit instead of function dress. As 
we walked in the grounds the sentry-box was vacant. The big 
Fijian guard was on the hillside watching some prisoners gar- 
dening for the Governor, As we approached he saw us and 
started for us with gun and fixed bayonet, motioning us out. I 
tried to explain I had an important engagement with the Gov- 
ernor, but he couldn't understand and the more I said the more 
sceptical he became. My passport and blue-ribboned, gold-sealed 
papers which I might have flashed in his face had been left 
at the hotel. All I could show was a red face and wilted clothes 
from a mile's hot walk. I started ahead anyway and he pointed 
the sticker of his gun at me again. With a two-handed gesture 
and emphatic remark I had been sent for and would surely 
come, I ran up the hill road to the royal residence. On arrival 



52 FIJI 

we found the native had taken a short cut across the lawn and 
was waiting for us at the veranda entrance. When the secre- 
tary saw him he wondered what was up, but when he saw us 
and I told him who we were, he said, ''0 yes," and dismissing 
the faithful Fijian he invited us into the waiting room while 
he went up stairs to tell the Governor the American gentlemen 
had come. Soon he returned and said we were welcome. How- 
ever, as if suspicious of the kodaks and the glasses, which 
might be infernal machines, he disarmed us and then led us 
up to see the Governor, saying in passing his Excellency could 
give us but five minutes. We were not surprised at our treat- 
ment thus far, our call was so unusual and informal and I 
imagine we looked like spies bent on killing his honor and 
wrecking the royal apartments. 

As we entered and were introduced his Excellency rose from 
the desk piled with busy papers and gave a smile, pleasant 
word and hand-shake. I told him who we were and what we 
wanted, that I was an American minister and not a spy or re- 
porter, that I had been in Suva two weeks and couldn't think 
of leaving without saying hello and good-bye. At once he in- 
formed me that in 500 years America's vitality and enthusiasm 
would be exhausted; that we had forgotten what Dewey said 
at the close of the Spanish war, that every American would 
shed his blood to help England in a tight place ; that the U. S. 
was sending contraband articles to Europe and should not do 
it; that he hoped it might not be necessary for England and 
America to go to war; that the Monroe Doctrine was too in- 
definite and ridiculous; that Mr. Wilson was a scholarly and 
good man but Mr. Eoosevelt would have done things very dif- 
ferently. 

He had the reputation for being a great talker and I was 
told it would be very difficult to get a word in edgeways. It 
was just as well I couldn't under the circumstances, and with 
the valor of unusual silent discretion I let him proceed, simply 
remarking from time to time, ''Yes," "No," "Surely," "Per- 
haps," "I hope so," "Not at all." The five-minute limit in- 
terview had already run to half an hour, and when I rose to 
leave and thank him, he went over to the wall, and pointing to 
a world map showed me that America was on it, but England 



FIJI 53 

had nailed down most of the countries and islands for her- 
self, and that of these 100 islands in the South Seas he was 
the general governor and governor general. After this lesson 
in government, political economy, the rights and duties of na- 
tions in war and peace, history and geography, it was noon, 
school was out, and much relieved * ' L " and I were dismissed. 

The following day I told of the pleasant call on the gover- 
nor and was gently chided by a G. B. subject, who said I 
should have gone in a more formal and functionary way befit- 
ting his Honor. I replied his Excellency couldn't have been 
kinder if I had called with a coach and six, that the apparel 
oft proclaims a man to be a fop or fool, that form and ceremony 
were dry husk-eating, that titles were very empty things some- 
times, and did not always prove the possessor to be a man of 
letters. Knowing the governor's title. Sir Bickham Sweet Es- 
cott, K. C. M. G., High Commissioner for the Western Pacific, I 
remembered the story of an American who was playing bridge 
with an English official. He signed his name on the hotel reg- 
ister with most of the letters of the alphabet. The blunt Yankee 
said he should have added four more, D. P. B. P. "What 

for?" said his Honor. '^ Because you are a d poor bridge 

player. ' ' 

After this official undress call in the morning it was fit- 
ting I should wear my tuxedo in accepting Mr. Johnson's invi- 
tation to dine at the Grand Pacific. He was the host and made 
a host of good friends in our party, who voted then and there 
that Suva ought to have an American consul and that Mr. 
Johnson was the man. From the time he heard our broad pro- 
nounciation and knew we were tramps abroad from his old glo- 
rious land, he spent time, money and energy in giving us a 
good time. Of course an American consul's salary isn't very 
much, but Johnson is independent of that and could spend it 
in hoisting the flag, boosting for the U. S. and entertaining 
visiting Americans. I was in the habit of addressing him as 
the "American consul" and hope that what I said in jest may 
soon come true in earnest. 

Our ship "Atua," which was to cruise us through the South 
Sea Islands, came in at last. When we went down to meet her, 
we met Rev. Small and some Papuans who had just come off 



54 FIJI 

the boat and were held at the customs and immigration bureau. 
They were from New Guinea, had been wrecked off the Aus- 
tralian coast, picked up and brought here. They needed a Chris- 
tian friend, brother and interpreter and Small was all that in 
one, for he had been here and through the Fiji islands many 
years. On the way to call on him next day I lost my way and 
splashed through rain and mud for an hour till I met a Samoan 
and Fijian who knew where he lived. For years Dr. Small has 
not only been diplomat, with marked executive ability, but a 
spiritual power, while personally he is "big white chief" to 
the natives. In his office, separate from the house, surrounded 
by books and papers, he talked to me for three hours on Fiji, 
past, present and future. When I left him he not only gave 
me a blessing, but some valuable relics in the form of books, a 
whale's tooth and war-club. 

Though the "Atua" touched at the Tongan and Samoan 
islands before we reached Levuka, Fiji, I will tell what hap- 
pened in the last named place first. 

A "MEKE" DANCE 



THE Sunday before landing was thrice welcome for the 
physical rest it brought. On land you work your body 
to a fury that leaves your soul a frazzle and the Sun- 
day contrast is marked. This evening it was awful 
and the Fijian crew was asked to give us a '*meke" or native 
dance. Perish the thought! We Christians might ask such a 
thing, but these poor heathen would not grant it for love of 
kava or money for it was Sunday, God's day, not theirs, and 
no unnecessary work was permissible. Captain Fletcher was 
their boss and my friend, and came to the rescue by per- 
suading them to give a sacred concert. They jumped at the 
chance, and for an hour, with sweet and splendid voice, sang 
Moody and Sankey Hymns and the ever favorite, ''Jesus Lover 
of My Soul," "Blessed Assurance" and "Throw Out the Life- 
line." 

Monday, after a hard day's work, they gave a "meke" on 
the hatchway. The big spotlights, by which they work at night, 
were placed around them as if on a stage. A native Samoan 




MEKE MEKE DANCE 



FIJI 




PAINTING TAPA 



FIJI 



FIJI 55 

woman and child sat on the deck, stewards and sailors stood 
around in line or sat on port and starboard rails, and we 
looked down from upper deck as from a gallery. There were 
fifty performers, oiled and lava-lavaed, with wreaths around 
necks and a flower over each ear. Their bodies shone with 
cocoanut oil and their bright eyes vied with the stars. The 
scene suggested Bunyan's ''shining ones." 

A "meke" is a sit down dance, a sedentary calisthenics. 
There is a large assortment. There are mekes on war, the woods, 
the fields, calms, tempests, rains, heavens, devils, gods, travel by 
sea and land, men and women. Our Fijians sat cross-legged 
on the hatch, swaying and swinging heads, arms and hands 
in perfect harmony. They clapped their hands, beat time with 
wooden sticks, struck their breasts and moved to the sound of 
their own voices as they sang and grunted some fable or story 
of home, love and war. The contortions, gestures and terrify- 
ing crouching postures were all in unison. Muscles twitched 
with excitement, eyes gleamed with restless fire, teeth grinned 
white, arms and legs, heads and hands moved fast and slow, 
or jerked and jiggled together as if they were mannikins and 
pulled by a single wire from behind. The sound of their voices 
drowned out the swish of the waves, their grunts and deep 
breathing were appalling and they shouted and sweat until ex- 
hausted. But the labor was a delight. They sang a toast to 
King George, improvised one for me calling me by name, and 
then stopped as suddenly as they began. For this Trojan work 
the passengers gave them some kava and cigarets. They were 
tired out and lay down on the hard deck to rest and dream of 
ancestral dances long ago. 

After invoking a "Vinaka" well done, I turned into my 
bunk to imagine that the pounding, tossing sea was a primitive 
Fijian following us with a war dance and club. Like "The 
Lost Chord" I have since sought to reproduce their meke music 
and dance, have sat cross-legged on the floor, doubled up as 
with colic, put a feather duster on my head, my arms and legs 
jerking in and out like a toy jumping Jack while I howled like 
a maniac, grunted like a pig and sweat like a horse. In vain ! 
It may be that only in Fiji I shall see that lost "meke meke" 
dance again. 




56 FIJI 



LOVELY LEVUKA 

[EYUKA is the old capital of the Fiji islands and is 
prettily placed on the island of Ovalu and has less 
than a thousand inhabitants. The wharf was piled 
with baskets of coral instead of baskets of fruit. We 
v>^ere seven and hired two hacks and started on a gallop along 
the one street which runs for a mile along the beach by copra 
store and clothing shop. We stopped at a church, went into 
the Polynesian Gazette office to get a smell of printer's ink; 
looked at the Masonic Temple, Victoria Memorial Hall and pub- 
lic school with its pretty grounds; paused at the Totoga bath- 
ing pool with its rocky basin, and at the white-ribboned Wait- 
ovu waterfall. 

Leaving town we drove around the island with sea and 
coral reef on one side and on the other high hills, deep ra- 
vines, green gullies, castled crags, palms and picturesque peaks 
in panoramic profusion. Little villages nestled in the valleys. 
Instead of haystack huts we found houses with concrete sides 
and thatched roofs. The natives came out to greet us, offer- 
ing curios and ''cat's-eyes" for sale. Our road ran along the 
shore and was lined and arched with eocoanut palms, and past 
coral reefs where canoes rested, nets were hung and children 
were gathering shells. We got out to join the company and 
gather sea-growths, when suddenly all the water that wasn't 
in the ocean fell down from the clouds on our heads. I ran 
into a native house for shelter and the family offered me a mat 
to sit on and a banana to eat. I smiled a thank you, but looked 
sadly at my half-drowned pony and the buggy seat full of 
water where I was to sit and take all the starch out of my clean 
duck trousers. 

The rain slackened and we hurried to the other end of the 
island, passing Hindu settlements, Fijian villages, jungle gar- 
dens, ocean views, tropical trees and catching snatches of glori- 
ous hill and mountain scenery as the wind lifted the veil of 
clouds with its fingers. Splashing back through the main street 
I paid for my water-logged buggy; visited Chinese shops, and 
invested in post cards and souvenir junk; went into a kava sa- 
loon where the soap suds were being dispensed, took a cup and 




PUBLIC COMFORT STATION 



LEVUKA, FIJI 




HOME BUILDERS 



LEVUKA, FIJI 



FIJI 57 



treated three of the boat help who followed me in and were dry 
in spite of the wet weather. I was sorry to leave lovely Levnka, 
but glad to have seen its rugged scenery, its semi-circular har- 
bor and coral reef where sun and cloud make heavenly colors. 

"TIPPERARY" 

NOTHER South Sea bubble burst as the "Atua" 
pulled away from the wharf and a mob of civilized 
cannibals murdered * ^ Tipperary. " It was one of the 
Fijian's favorite songs. The night we left on the 
''Atua" for Tonga, a native princess came on board jeweled and 
barefooted. She cried as she kissed her people, on the face or 
hands, who had come on deck to bid her good-bye. After this 
tearful greeting the men stepped on to the wharf, and though 
dressed in their best coats and collars, sat in the drizzling rain 
serenading her with Fijian and Tongan songs. "When the boat 
pulled out, they substituted for our ''God Be With You," ''It's 
a Long "Way to Tipperary," singing it loud, sweet and strong 
till we sailed out of hearing. This refrain is echoed all over 
the South Seas, and there isn't much in it except for the writers 
whose few little notes brought big bank notes in exchange. 





A TONGAN TOWN 



CAPT. "WALLIS was a charming fellow. He looked 
more like the preacher and I like the sailor. He was 
named after the famous voyager Wallis, and his father 
and family were missionaries. It was a cool Sun- 
day at last, blue skies and water, and I divided my reading be- 
tween the Psalms and a volume on "Tonga," by Mariner, is- 
sued in 1818. It was a most interesting book, so much so that 
one volume had been stolen. "When it comes to Tonga, Mari- 
ner's book, like the Bible, is a first and final authority. 

There were a few first-class passengers, no seconds and 
among the third the most interesting were the Fijians and some 
pigs, sheep, horses and cattle. The Fijians were our copra crew 
working under Captain Fletcher. In the afternoon we passed 
Turtle Island where Captain Cook was wrecked. Whether the 
boat turned turtle or whether a turtle overturned the boat I 
didn't find out. We took tea in the captain's cabin and Wallis 
gave us a good time, including a big roll of Tonga tapa for a 
souvenir. He said I might use it for a bathing suit, a bath 
robe or a shroud. 

The next morning we sailed by beautiful islands that looked 
like floating vegetables and canoes darted around them like so 

58 



TONGA 59 



many flies. Wallis left the table hurriedly to get back on the 
bridge to "reef-dodge," as he called it. This is the principal 
game in these waters, not ship-golf or cards, tennis or shuffle- 
board, but dodging the reef and hurricane. The wrecks of 
big and small vessels the white teeth of the coral had picked 
bare to the ribs, were lying about us, a solemn warning not to 
venture without pilots. Here wrecks, not buoys, are what the 
officers go by. After some swishes, swirls and threading a laby- 
rinth of coral over which the big waters foamed white, we 
stopped for a visit from the doctor. He was a 32nd degree 
Mason, gave us the ''pass" word and let us dock. 

This was the toy town of Nukualofa, the capital of the 
Friendly Island group, on the sacred island of Tongatabu. 
It looks too new from the beach, with its modern stores and 
churches, for such an old background of palms, oleanders and 
hibiscus. 

I stepped from the gang to a grassy wharf that led to streets 
green as cow-pastures. I wanted a horse, but the native men 
and women only showed pairs of sturdy calves. King Kichard 
himself couldn't get a good horse here for a kingdom, and the 
only kind we saw were a few spavined remains nibbling grass 
in the public square. They are the street commissioners of the 
island. Our party wanted to drive around and went to five 
different stores asking in three different languages for a horse, 
yet horse there was none. Finally we met a native who prom- 
ised to take us out a dozen miles to the famous ruins, the show 
place of the islands, but his horse and buggy were in ruins. 
He wanted fifteen or twenty dollars, a ruinous price, and even 
then did not feel sure he could get us back in time for the boat 
that left next morning. This was too bad and my party told 
him so in words to that effect, and with no effect. 

"We came to visit the "Mua," 12 miles away, with its 
limestone caves, and the "Langis," those strange tombs of the 
old priest-kings of Tonga. The largest "Langi" is a 2000 
foot square enclosed by two tiers of large coral blocks laid 
end to end, accurately squared and fitting close together. One 
of the corner blocks is 21 feet long, 5 feet wide and 4 
feet high. They were supposed to have been cut out of the 
coral reef forgotten ages ago, and by some unknown contriv- 
ance brought here. How or when is a lost chapter. Another 



60 TONGA 

mysterious relic of some lost tribe and civilization is the 
"Haamunga. " It is a three stone affair, ' * trilithon, " made 
of two big upright blocks of stone with another huge block laid 
across the top so that it forms a sort of doorway. It is 25 feet 
high and suggests a Stonehenge, or Easter Island in the Pacific 
with similar remains. All this was surely worth seeing and a 
Niagara hack driver would have rushed you over the ground 
so that you wouldn't have missed anything. But these natives 
care little for tourists or money. Horses are few and far be- 
tween. There are no autos, the natives think you are a fool for 
wanting to go and told us there was nothing to see when we 
got there. They acted so like jackasses that they should have 
been bridled and saddled and driven out to the sights. There is 
a fine chance here for a good livery stable and hack driver. I 
hope in 25 years they will wake up to the situation and in 50 
years have one. 

TAPA 

I HERE was nothing else to do but walk and we started 
out. The sound of tap-tap-tapa, like the noise of a 
gigantic woodpecker, was everywhere, proving that 
some one was alive and busy. After a short stroll we 
came to a tree where a woman was sitting before a big log. 
She was hammering mulberry bark into flat sheets and joining 
them together by pounding, keeping time in a tropic rhyme. 
She looked up, smiled and went at it again. She must have 
weighed 300 pounds, sat cross-legged and would have made a 
companion poem to Longfellow's "Village Blacksmith." When 
I showed my kodak, she' called to a hut across the yard. Her 
pretty daughter came out and was willing to stand for a pic- 
ture. I put some money in her hand, a flag in her hair and 
that gave her a "look pleasant" expression. Tapa is money 
here and you are rated by it as Samoans are by their mats. 
Tapa is used for dress and screens. Women take strips of 
inner mulberry bark, soak it in water, beat it out thin and 
long and join it to other strips till they look like big sheets 
of yellow paper. This "gnatoo" is patterned and painted from 
dyes made from native bush. 





POUNDING TAPA 



NUKUALOFA, TONGA 



ft' * »^,iV 




.J) 



!\ 




\ 



TONGA'S NATIONAL AIR 



NUKUALOFA, TONGA 



TONGA 61 

I heard this legend of the origin of tapa. Once there lived 
two brothers each of whom had a plot of ground. One of the 
boys was named Tutunga, or the paper mulberry. The other 
was called Salato, the stinging tree. The former jumped the 
latter 's claim who, when he was unable to oust his brother, went 
home and told his parents. They decided the brothers should 
separate. Salato, or the stinging tree, was to go into the in- 
terior of the island and be venerated. He is, for the stinging 
tree is so sacred that none of the natives dare touch it. The 
other brother was to be punished for his greed. Accordingly 
Tutunga, the paper mulberry, was to be cut, skinned, ham- 
mered, decorated and made into garments that would become 
soiled, wear out and then be burned. This has been Tutunga 's 
fate from that early time until now. 

SUMMER SCHOOL 



T 



HE tapa sound was followed by a hum and buzz 
like a beehive. Entering a shady yard we came to 
a free native school. The children were sitting and 
sprawling on an outside veranda studying a reader. 
Two big Tongan guards kept them busy and orderly. Inside, 
the room was crowded with scholars studying maps, reading, 
writing and spelling English. A grizzled old native in under- 
shirt and lava-lava stood over the scholars with an umbrella 
in his hand. If there was any inattention, laughing or whis- 
pering, he walked over to the boy or girl and poked or whacked 
the offender over head and shoulders with the umbrella. He 
was the reigning spirit of the room. The teacher was a Tongan 
who had been educated in New Zealand. She was a kind, 
earnest soul and proud of her classes. I picked up papers 
written in English and in much better hand than I can write. 
The writers told how they loved their island and how much 
better it was than any others of the same group. 

MISSIONARIES 

FTER this lesson in literature we went to study 
geography and made the ascent of the 55 foot moun- 
tain, the highest on the island. It is crowned with 
a large oval-shaped church that looked as if it had 
been laid by a big roc. The roof was neither tin nor wood 




62 TONGA 

but thatch that rested on tree beams. Entering I saw these 
beams rested on two rows of large tree trunks that extended 
the whole length of the place, and were held together by sinnet 
ropes of cocoanut fiber wound round and colored with artistic 
effect. There wasn't an iron band or nail in the whole build- 
ing, not even of the "true cross." It is a Wesleyan "free" 
church, built and run according to John Wesley's idea. What 
that idea was is expressed in these words of his, "Observe, it is 
not your business to preach so many times and to take care 
of this and that society, but to save as many souls as you can." 
In doing this the missionaries have not forgotten that Wesley 
added body "works" to the soul's faith, founded schools, gave 
medicine to the sick, clothing to the naked and food to the 
hungry. The church was well put together, the only split being 
a "union" church run by natives who objected to having the 
white folks handle and have so much of their money. 

If the heathen are a law unto themselves, their own con- 
sciences accusing or excusing them, it would seem that some- 
times they had been better off in time and eternity if the dear 
people at home, who neglect their own poor pastor and peo- 
ple, had not sent money and missionaries to convert them. 
There was land-sharking which gave the missionary quarters 
and luxuries far greater than his talents would have allowed 
him at home. Injudicious Christian interference brought dis- 
sension and disunion between families and rulers. In some 
places the idea of temporal power hindered social and political 
advance, and missionary preaching was better than its example. 
At times there was far too much of Bible bigotry and Jesus 
jingoism. Fanaticism furnished new sins for bad amusements, 
incited to revenge, killed pastor and people of opposite beliefs 
and added to life's misery and death's terror. So great was 
this holy rivalry that a sinful native was often permitted to 
go alone to the hereafter rather than allowed to be directed 
to heaven by another route. The religious scandal of the South 
Seas is the struggle between the Wesleyan Methodist Church 
Missionary Society and the Free Church of Tonga. It was a 
prize slugging match between King George I of Tonga and Rev. 
Shirley Baker against Mr. Moulton, and later the king and 
Mr. Watkin. 



TONGA 63 

Does civilization improve or is Nature best? This is the 
Banquo question that will not down. A loveless dogmatic 
theology has never been helpful at home or abroad. When a 
missionary has consecrated sense and sympathy, teaches the 
Ten Commandments in the spirit of the Sermon on the Mount, 
inculcates sanitary and labor laws and keeps out of politics, he 
does good. "When he teaches denominationalism, lusts for tem- 
poral power, seeks office, grabs land and becomes an exploiter 
instead of an exhorter, he does harm. It's a sad thing to see 
the native struggling in the white starch shirt and collar of 
civilization. Often his soul, like his mind and body, die with 
the white man's contact. 

A DEADBEAT KING 

HE biggest pebbles on the beach are the king's royal 

palace and chapel. They are side by side, are painted 

white, made of wood and stand in a large park full 

of trees and flowers. The royal palace looks like a 

private cottage, a small seaside hotel or boarding house. 

The king has a royal chapel of his own where he and his 
wife worship. I saw his highness sitting like a Buddha, keep- 
ing cool on the porch of his palace, and with servants near to 
brush off the flies. This King George Tubou II thinks he is the 
sovereign boss of the Tongan group and head of the now only 
independent kingdom of the Pacific, yet he is only a figure- 
head. He imagines he is driving, but England holds the reins 
of the protectorate. No tourist is permitted to enter his palace. 
When I neared the gate, a woman in tapa and wrapped up 
in a plaited mat, as a sign of official respect to the king, ran 
down from the porch and closed the garden gate for fear I 
would enter. But I saw him on the porch and waved my hat 
to him and he responded with a wave of his hand. You couldn 't 
miss seeing his highness and wideness. He is six feet four 
inches tall, very stout and should be a pillar in church and 
society, and an inspiring support, but he is too imposing, a dead 
beat who borrows from relatives and natives whenever he can 
with no intention of settling up. He never runs for office or 
exercise, only runs in debt. He occupies the throne according 




64 TONGA 



to the Tongan custom that the royal line of succession is through 
the mother and not the father. 

The king business is a cinch here. ''Uneasy lies the head 
that wears a crown" never enters George's head. I wonder if 
he is tlie author of these touching lines, 

"It is Oh ! — to be king of a cocoanut isle, 

Asleep in a tropical sea, 
"Where a belt as a costume is strictly in style, 
And the maidens are sweet as they placidly smile 
With a smile that is winsome and free 

Quite free 
In that isle on a tropical sea." 

I didn't lose anything by not calling on him, yet probably 
would have if I had, for he doubtless would have asked me for 
the loan of a pound or two. 

They have daily movies here, and comic opera once every 
three years when Parliament is opened. The king is then the 
chief performer. On the side, as scene shifters and supes, are 
his elected representatives, the native born hereditary chiefs, 
a Chief Justice Chancellor of the Exchequer and a Prime Min- 
ister. 

King George Tubou II opens the big Parliament show. In- 
stead of sulu and bare feet he is tricked out in swell London 
togs. His royal locks, that have been free to the sun and air, 
are bound in with a gold crown, studded with gems big enough 
for horse jewelry. Over his broad, barn-door shoulders he 
wears a crimson velvet mantle, ermine-trimmed, that would 
make a good street sweep if the page boys in feather caps and 
stage tights would let it drop or fall. The big thing about 
this exhibition is that it is free. It takes place al fresco and 
the tourist is fortunate if the ship is in and docks long enough 
for him to watch his Excellency and satellites. They march 
through the flag and flower-decorated streets with the king's 
soldiers drawn up on both sides and the trumpeters bowing 
and blowing before and after. I asked what product came from 
all this state machinery and was informed that after the cur- 
tain was rung down the king went to the palace, took off his 
crown and shoes, enjoyed a smoke, and began to plan how he 
could borrow some money without paying it back. 



TONGA , 65 

The king lias a new wife, rather young and shapely, but 
she is not such a favorite with the natives as the former queen. 
My wife saw her at devotions in the royal chapel. George gave 
his dead wife a big burial and wanted a big v/edding for his 
new wife. I was told he ordered a very large and expensive 
wedding cake from Auckland, but the baker refused to make 
it or send it until he received the money in advance. His credit 
may be good with W. L. Harris at the New England, but not 
in New Zealand. This seems incredible and is utterly discred- 
itable. It is said that when the ship comes in the Prime Min- 
ister has stood bare-footed on the wharf eating bananas. Once 
the Chancellor of the Exchequer Vfas so hungry for clams that 
he waded out into the reef. As he stooped over he dropped the 
key of the national treasury among the eels and fish and so 
held up the finance of the government and the funds of the 
grafters till some divers and fishermen were sent for who found 
the lost key. 

TONGAN TOGS 

N color the natives look like a good cup of Java and 
Mocha coffee with plenty of cream. They have 
length, breadth and thickness but in good proportion. 
The only carriage worth looking at is the native's. 
They stretch their legs and swing their arms in what is called 
the '^Tongan swagger." The men don't work much at any- 
thing except their toilet. They are proud of their feet and 
legs, as some women, and love to show their fine calves. Their 
valas, or lavas, a short slit skirt down to the knee, are 
made of the finest cashmere. They wear shirts of cotton 
or silk, bound with silk sashes that resemble rainbow splashes 
of color. The Tongan's face shines with joy and eocoanut oil. 
He goes bareheaded, not to show Samson locks for he keeps 
his short, but because no one except the big chief is permitted 
to wear a hat. This is sad for you can never ask him where 
he got that hat or accuse him of talking through it. He wears 
, his hair cut short and brushed up. It is mostly black but some 
natives use coral lime for disinfecting purposes and the result 
is light yellow. 

Old women wear their hair in prison-cut style and blondeen, 
redden and yellow it. The younger and smart set of girls love 




66 TONGA 

tobacco. Cigarets are their favorite smoke. On the street or 
in the home they puff, puff and with powder and puff ape 
swell society. Their dresses are often as transparent and reveal- 
ing as the water they bathe in. Tongan girls and half-castes 
love to dress up in colored shawls, wear their hair in a knot on 
top of their head, or in a switch or rat of cocoa fibre that sticks 
far out behind, a cigaret over one ear and a chunk of tobacco 
over the other. They dry leaves of strong tobacco over hot 
coals and wrap them up in pieces of banana leaves. This is 
their package of Tongan delights. 

Nearly all of them are good looking and were quite modest 
and dignified when I measured up their beauty and said, 
"Malolelei, ah there my beauty." They have a pretty easy 
time compared with the Fijian women. "Wife-beating is limited 
to tapa. The men are so anxious to keep them tender and sweet 
that they do the house work. While she is putting on her glad 
rags, she tells him she will walk out with him if he will make 
up the mats and wash the cocoanut dishes at night. As a rule the 
woman is loyal to one husband, though anciently when she was 
married she became the wife of all his brothers. If this seemed 
a one-sided relation, her husband had the privilege of visiting 
his wife's family and regarding all his wife's sisters as his 
temporary wives. If he dared flirt with a girl of another 
family it was a mark of disrespect to his wife and she could 
sue for divorce. Like the ladies of color in the South on Fourth 
of July occasions the women aim to look their best and wear 
gaudy streamers and arrowroot fibre around their waist and 
neck. 

I saw a boy with a mat under his arm and tried to buy it, 
but my guide said that although the boy wanted the money, 
he dared not sell it, for if the king came along the boy would 
have to wrap the mat around himself and stand like a chunk 
of meat done up in a piece of brown paper. This costume is 
an old Uriah Heep custom to show the respect of inferiors to 
their chiefs. 

We walked through shady avenues, glorious with trees and 
flowers and iron-woods delicate of leaf and durable of fibre. 
There were curious species of pine, the sacred avavas solemn 
as cedars of Lebanon, and cocoanut palms tall and graceful as a 
sweet, sixteen year old blonde, swaying to and fro and able 




TONGA 67 



to stand hurricane pressure. We paused to look in native 
houses where happy, hospitable people offered us cocoanuts and 
fruit, and on the way to the royal cemetery met many "brownie" 
boys and girls who smiled and laughed their "Malolelei " 

ROYAL GRAVES 

HE cemetery was big and barren and in the center 
stood two stone monuments. The one in memory of 
the old king was ornamented with a large lion, the 
other had a small and graceful statue of the queen. 
We climbed the stone steps and read inscriptions testifying 
to their worth and worthiness. At the base of the platforms 
were squares of black and white gravel beds. These stones 
are brought from a distance and carefully arranged in designs 
of funeral decoration peculiar to this end of the world. One 
would think a grass and flower bed would be preferable to a 
stony bed that is only good for a river or road. Doubtless the 
shades have some spiritual significance of this world or the 
next. 

''Hark from the tombs a doleful sound" of the college band 
playing * * Tipperary. " It was frightful enough to wake the 
dead and kill the living, yet we boldly entered the campus 
gate, saluted the Tongan colors, the red cross of the Rosicru- 
cians, and went in the big college schoolroom, built in airy 
Tongan style. 

A DANDY DRILL 

MLfT ERE a soldier-teacher introduced us to the native 
IJ^jJ teachers and scholars. They brought out the blaek- 
^^1^ board, on which their national air had been chalked, 
^ iMiiilll r that we might photograph it. The students sang it 
and seemed to be better acquainted with it than some Americans 
are with the "Star-Spangled Banner." After this they were 
led by the band, marched around the campus, drilled with guns 
and two old cannon that were more for show than shoot. The 
boys were dressed in white gowns to their knees, and a red sash 
around their waists made them look like Zouaves. Their bare 
feet and brown legs made a pretty picture on the green campus. 



68 TONGA 



They may never be soldiers but it was good athletics and drill. 
If these boys are proficient in their studies they are sent to New 
Zealand, United States or abroad. At present their course is 
limited to music, shorthand and English. 

After the drill they stood around and I made them a little 
speech telling them they were a credit to themselves and the 
king who founded the school. The boys were no more willing 
to leave us than we were to leave them, so we stood under the 
sheltering trees talking with each other while some of them 
talked to the ladies, who told them their fortunes and read 
their brown palms. They were delighted, and to please us, said 
they would give us a kava party. At once the chief's sons 
went over to the veranda of their club house and prepared for 
the ceremony. 

A KAVA PARTY 

HEY formed a semicircle and sat cross-legged on the 
porch. The kava bowl and cups were placed in the 
center. I was too fat and short to fold my legs under 
me and was honored with a perch on a chair. A 
chief's son took the kava root, pounded it with two stones and 
placed it in the big bowl cut out of a block of hard wood. 
An assistant poured water on it from a basin. Then the host 
mixed it up with his hand and mussed with it as if he were 
starching clothes or washing his hands. Next he strained it 
and wrung it through a piece of hibiscus bark fibre called 
"fau." He repeated this until all the juice was out of the 
root, then the root was thrown away and nothing remained but 
a dirty yellow, soapy dishwater-looking fluid. This nectar fit 
for the pigs was now ready to serve. Someone clapped his 
hands to show the drink was ready. My name was called and 
I responded by clapping my hands, not for the joy of drink- 
ing it, but to applaud the boy who had so thoroughly cleaned 
his hands in the kava bowl. Etiquette prescribes that you 
drain the cup down at a single draught without taking a 
breath. I did it much as one might take a dose of salts. The 
poet's pathetic words took on a new meaning, 
"The kava bowl fill high- 
Drain every drop ! tomorrow we may die. ' ' 




TONGA 69 

They applauded my brave effort and I bowled the empty nut 
cup towards my host who offered me another, but one was 
enough. It tasted like the boyhood time when my dear mother 
washed out my mouth with soap for saying naughty words. 

Kava isn't intoxicating and has the flavor of pepper, licorice 
and ginseng. Just as people acquire the cigaret, old cheese, 
Postum and Bourbon taste I learned to like it. It smothered 
my burning thirst in a hot climate, cooled my blood and 
stimulated me to new determination to learn all I could of 
native life and compare the short and simple annals and flannels 
of the poor natives with the artificial drink, food and raiment 
of my civilized barbarian brothers at home. The Tongans are 
known as moderate kava drinkers compared with their Fijian 
neighbors who absorb it, wallow in it and try to be sponges 
and soak it all up. 

Kava is not the ''root of all evil" but the root of the 
Piper Methysticum shrub which the natives dig and dry and 
sell to the shops where it resembles bits of driftwood. Like 
coffee it has to be ground to get good effects. So years ago 
pretty girls used their "grinders" to pulverize it, and after 
it was nicely masticated and rolled over and under their tongues, 
like sin's sweet morsel, they spat it out in a big, fat-bellied 
bowl that stands on three legs. 

Anciently this flowing kava bowl was much like a bar cus- 
pidor, but the civilizing and Christianizing influence of the 
whites, whose mission was to fill the natives with soda and whisky 
and rob them, has prevailed. The kava root is now mashed 
with rocks, grated on grinders or ground up in coffee mills or 
sausage machines. 

Some of these bowls are very old and have their insides 
enamelled with a gray and silver coating from constant use. 
The cups are coeoanut shells cut in half and smooth, and are 
the color of an old gray bonnet from long soaking. Just as 
a toper acquires a deeper purple bloom in his cups, so these 
kava wood bowls and coeoanut cups take on a purple blue 
color, lasting and beautiful. The price of a kava bowl is not 
according to its size but color, and unlike the drinker, its old 
age is brightest and best. Some bowls are priceless, the 
family's dearest household gods and possessions. 



70 TONGA 



Kava is the universal South Sea drink. If you want to 
keep your "steady" you must not offer her tea, coffee, coca- 
cola or soda, but kava. It is to these thirsty peoples what beer 
is to Germany, wine to France, ale to England and vodka 
to Russia, with the difference that it is not intoxicating. You 
may drink like a fish and feel happy and harmless although 
years of kava absorbtion makes your eyes filmy and legs 
flabby. 

If prohibition becomes national in U. S., there's a chance 
to make millions by importing kava, which does not create but 
cures thirst. Let the root be brought here, chewed by pretty 
girls and then served in a ceremony adapted to our place and 
people and it will be the most popular drink ever drunk. 
Kava is better than kerosene whisky. 

NATIVE MUSIC 



WE knew there were plantains on the island and after 
this kava feast learned there were plantation melodies. 
The boys had sweet and cultivated voices. One acted 
as the leader. He lined out ''Old Kentucky Home" 
and "Swanee River," while the others chanted and hummed an 
accompaniment or song in splendid unison. ''Tipperary" was 
tipped off in jaunting-car style, then came their own splendid 
and swelling airs that were followed by "Home Sweet Home" 
and "Tofa ma Feleni," (Good-bye, my friend). The time, 
tune, strength and sweetness of this Tongan music, without 
instrumental accompaniment, was equal to anything I had heard 
in Russian cathedrals. The natives like the mouth-organ better 
than the hand or pipe-organ. They handle the "Hallelujah" 
chorus in good style on great occasions. This is only natural. 
It is an obvious corollary to find choral singers on a coral island. 

Before the missionaries came, the only time the natives blew 
their nose was when they played the " f ango-f ango, " or nose 
flute. It was a foot long and about two inches wide with one 
hole below and four above. The magic flutist would take a deep 
breath, blow into the end hole with one nostril while closing the 
other nostril with his finger. Now they blow themselves and use 
mouth-organs, guitars, pianolas and handkerchiefs. 



TONGA 71 



CURSE 




T is diiiicult to believe these sweet singers could ever 
be induced to use their ancestors' oath, ''vangi," 
quoted by Mariner: 

"Dig up your father by moonlight and make soup 
of his bones ; bake his skin to cracknel ; gnaw his skull ; devour 
your mother ; dig up your aunt and cut her to pieces ; chew the 
heart of your grandfather; swallow the eyes of your uncle; 
strike your god; eat the gristle bones of your children; suck 
out the brains of your grandmother; dress yourself up in the 
skin of your father and tie it on with the entrails of your 
grandmother." This hardly harmonizes with the command 
"Love one another." If a man thus cursed his family I won- 
der what he would say against his worst enemy. 

THIS IS THE LIFE 

ON this Tongan island there are no idols, but the natives 
are idle while the scenery is idyllic. We saw much 
in the short walk between the college and ship for 
there were no autos or street cars to dodge. It was 
a dream of fruit, flowers and fair women. Boys and girls 
stepped to one side and gave us the right of way on streets 
that were nothing but lawns. Men beckoned us to their native 
huts and were willing to climb trees for cocoanuts. Girls, 
brown-faced, eyed and footed gave us side glances, looked down 
and sweetly said, "Malolelei." "We echoed the same word for 
it means "good-bye" as well as "good day." 

This is a fruit Eden. There were bread-fruits, taro and 
yams if you were real hungry, and a dessert of oranges, lemons, 
pineapples, mummy-apples, grenadillas and passion fruit. None 
of this fruit was forbidden. If you preferred flowers there 
were oleanders, hibiscus, frangipanni, sensitive plants, poin- 
settias, crotons and many-colored foliage bushes. 

Had we remained here much longer we would have become 
as lazy as the natives for whom Nature does everything. The 
coral builds the reef that makes a beautiful breakwater; the 
bread-fruit tree is the baker; the cocoanut tree, the milkman; 
the eandlenut tree, the oilman; the banana and orange are the 



72 TONGA 

fruiterers; sugar-cane is the confectioner; mulberry tree is the 
clothier ; pine tree is the hair-brush ; the pandanus and screw 
palm are the carpenters, for their houses are thatched from* 
these trees. This "flat" island is completely furnished by 
landlady Nature and is free. The location is fine. There are 
palm groves and coral gardens and the native has the ocean 
for a bath-tub. 

BATS AND PIGS 

"NUKUALOFA is quiet by day and sepulchral by night. 
We attended a movie, but it was a sad affair, though 




the natives enjoyed it. There is no ''batting" around 
here at night except by bats with bodies as big as a 
tomcat and a head shaped like a fox. A dozen miles from 
town there is a small forest of big trees that are inhabited all 
day by sleepy bats who hang down as thick as flies on a sugar- 
bowl. Ten thousand of them get up when the sun goes down 
and fly over the island for fruit. They like the best and leave 
the trees in worst condition. After these batty epicures have 
battened on the fruit, they return next day after a fifty mile 
trip and roost and rest up for another night-raid robbery. They 
live a charmed life and because they are ."tabu" the Tongans 
think the sky would fall and the earth open if one of the bats 
or the trees was killed or cut down. 

There is a Captain Cook tree twelve miles out of town. Cook 
came here in 1777, stood on the roots of a giant avava tree 
and made a speech something like Penn to the Indians. He 
said he was their friend and to prove it gave them a number 
of nice presents, including some pigs, whereupon the pigs and 
people grunted and rooted their thanks. The porkers were 
not a handsome Berkshire boar and wife, but they lived happily, 
raised a large family and their honored descendants are found 
all over the islands today, raising their high backs and poking 
their sharp snouts into other people's business as if they were 
human. 



TONGA 



LAKA-LAKA DANCE 

OlN with the dance, and the South Sea natives are on 
I to the dance. It is the active, thrilling, throbbing kind 
the tourists like, yet it looked as if we were to sail 
without seeing one and it made us very sad. A few 
hours before we pulled out I induced twelve Tongan boys to 
come on the upper deck and give us a laka-laka dance. Of 
course the girl omission made it flat and less fascinating, but. 
the boys did their best. They were prosaically dressed in shirts 
and pants, wore flowers in their hair and twanged banjos and 
guitars. The first thing they did was to make an "X" of 
their legs on the deck, move hips and knees, throw their arms 
out to one side, and jump up, hop around, hum and sing. 
These day-dreamers take no note of time except in the dance 
and then mark it well. Time is money and for the good time 
they gave us I made a little "spiel," passed the hat after I 
put a pound in it for our party, and collected over two 
pounds. 

MORMONS 

jMONG those who chipped in were two young Mormon 
missionaries. These Brigham brothers are quite 
numerous in the South Seas. I am not surprised, for 
there are many comely young girl converts, although 
it is said polygamy is not taught. I wonder much at this for 
here, if anywhere, it should be taught. One of the most strik- 
ing features of the Mormon creed I learned at Salt Lake City 
was the "spiritual wife" doctrine. The future kingdom of the 
saints consists simply of their own posterity. The more chil- 
dren a "saint" has the more "heirs of glory" are created. 
Women are admitted to this heavenly glory when "sealed" to 
a saint, and may slip into heaven with him. This so-called 
"spiritual" relation has a very "material" aspect. Love is 
enjoyed, children born and polygamy with its sensual excesses 
flourishes. Falstaff would have made a good Mormon and 
Henry VIII should be included in the calendar of their saints. 
Mormons and Gentiles all agreed it was a good dance, morally 
good, not a bad one, but fifteen dollars was big pay for a kind 





74 TONGA 

of dance that would have been edifying to the inmates of an 
Aged "Women's Home or an infant class in Sunday school. 

It is death to sail out of a coral harbor at night because the 
coral insect has planted so many torpedoes and mines. When 
the dancers had thanked us and sung "Tofa ma Feleni," we 
went to our cupboard cabin couch and next morning said ' ' Tof a 
Tongatabu" and sailed away. 

DODGING ISLANDS 

OR twelve hours the "Atua" sailed among islands, 
volcanic and coral. Maps change in Europe and here. 
Islands like kingdoms rise and fall. Our ship passed 
near the place where in 1855 the Falcon Islands 
appeared to the surprise of the sailors who had never seen it 
before. The captain stands on the hot bridge as Casablanca 
on the burning deck, not knowing when he may go up or down. 
He was on the lookout for floating islands. Some of the green 
isles looked like lily pads, others like small French bonnets and 
the bees in the bonnets were skiffs. Others resembled bouquets 
on the swelling bosom of the deep. Natives were spearing 
fish and gathering shells on the reefs. I wish some of these 
gems and "Pearls of the Pacific," so plentiful here, had been 
strung on some of the other lonely steamship "lines." Passing 
up Fua and Maano, the two leading islands of the Haapai group, 
we headed for Lefuka where poor William Mariner was 
wrecked on the "Port-au-Prince" in 1806. His loss was the 
world's gain for he swam ashore, was adopted by chief Finau 
and for four years ate, drank, dressed, talked and worked like 
one of the natives. In after years he visited England and 
wrote his "Mariner's Tonga," one of the most classic and 
popular books of travel in the world. It is well called the 
Bible of the Friendly Islands. The old saint, the young sinner, 
the devil and doctor of divinity all quote it. 

BIG CHIEF FINAU 

OST of Mariner's shipwrecked companions were killed 

here, he was saved and took the fancy of Chief Finau, 

who adopted him as a son and for four years showed 

him every kindness. Finau is a big name in Tongan 

history, and one of our distinguished passengers was his royal 




TONGA 



75 



descendant, a short, thick, fat, pleasant and entertaining man. 
His chief occupation is to go about and visit the Tongan islands. 
He sat opposite me at a single table, and the way he piled up 
his plate and made the food disappear was a wonder. He rel- 
ished it so much that he made us hungry. I was introduced and 
talked to him through a mutual friend interpreter. The natives 
regard him as a big man, so do I, for when I stood by his side my 
200 pounds made me look like a skeleton in comparison. My 
friend. Dr. G. G. Eitel, would have to hoist him on the operating 
table with a derrick and use a telescope to locate his appendix. 

The Tongans are good travelers. They not only visit the 
neighboring islands but go as far as New Zealand. They bring 
their mats and rugs and prefer the floor to the bunk. A cabin 
opposite mine was converted into a kind of native hut and 
crowded with bananas and cocoanuts. When they go third 
class, they sleep on deck, smoke cigarets, sing and dance, put 
on a few clothes and more cocoanut oil. 

Cocoanut oil is the Standard Oil of the South Seas. It is 
food and dress. It makes your hair grow, your skin shiny, 
your muscles supple, drives away insects and people unused 
to its odor, cures mosquito bites, protects from sun-stroke, 
keeps you warm and cool and kills the smell of sweat. I brought 
a bottle of it home and have carefully anointed my head with 
oil, yet its many applications have resulted in no more hair. 
My scalp is still a dangerous place for a fly to use as a prome- 
nade deck. 

HAPPY HAAPAI 

B mariners were more fortunate, and sailing through 
a low, shelving coral reef, anchored in the roadstead. 
"We were taken by lighters and happily landed at 
Pangai. Shiny, wet, copper-colored boys and girls, 
who had been in swimming, met us. Happy kids in their 
heavenly climate with fruits and flowers, bathing their brown 
oily skins in tropic pools or surf, eating bananas and pine- 
apples, drinking cocoanuts and chasing each other like butter- 
flies ! How much better off than our street gamins kept off the 
grass, arrested if they take some Methuselah fruit from a cor- 
ner stand, running the risk of being run over as they splash 
their feet in the muddy gutter, or of being arrested because 
they bathe in some dirty canal without an expensive bathing 




76 TONGA 



suit ! The main street or beach boulevard was a grassy pasture 
where little horses were feeding and bare-footed natives were 
hurrying on account of the approaching storm. If it was to 
be a big storm, we wanted a big house for protection, not the 
tiny huts where native men and women wore little more than 
the towel which they would need when drenched. 



A RAMSHACKLE PALACE 



SHELTER was found in the king's palace. It looked 
like a Kentucky courthouse with porches round about 
and a royal coat of arms over the front door. What 
it needed most was a coat of paint. The iron roof 
was patched up where a previous hurricane had enjoyed a 
ripping good time. The porch was sunken, the door off its 
hinges and we entered a barn of a place that would have been 
a paradise for a beast, not a man. This favorite summer palace 
of the fat king at Nukualofa was an illustration of Hood's 
poem of "The Haunted House." The bare-armed and coatless 
native keeper led us through all the rooms but one. It was 
locked. Perchance it had been the haunt of a ghost, though 
surely a respectable ghost would think twice before staying 
here. The house was so shaky there would be no ghost of a 
chance for it in a hurricane. The best thing about this palace 
was the big ground and picturesque palms. At the gate we 
met a fat Samoan with a fat horse, who arranged at a fat price 
to drive us around the town and across to the other side of 
the island. 

FRIENDLY ISLANDERS 

|E SAT next to me, and I noticed a dark blue pantalet 
of pretty design under his sulu. To accommodate my 
curiosity he pulled it up and I found it was a tattoo 
extending from his knee to his waist, as elaborately 
worked as any piece of French tapestry. These South Sea suits 
are warranted never to wear out or lose their color. 

Our drive was through villages where naked children 
romped under palms or played around stacks of cocoanuts piled 
about the huts like cannon balls. Everywhere were signs of a 





''^-^^^SM "■^v*:''11^^ 



s^ 




HUTS AND NUTS 



HAAPAI, TONGA 




HOUSE WRECKED BY HURRICANE 



HAAPAI, TONGA 



TONGA 77 



recent hurricane loss, witli trees down, tops off, and huts 
twisted and unroofed. It began to rain and we followed some 
children who were hurrying to their house for shelter, their 
arms filled with fruit. We stopped at a grass house and en- 
tered unceremoniously. An old man smiled us a welcome. He 
was sitting on the mat floor holding a baby in his arms. Nearby 
a mother sat tending a child in trouble. She dropped it to 
pick up a loose wrap which she threw over her bare shoulders. 
When the driver told them who we were, bananas and cocoa- 
nuts were brought in and we ate and drank to the health and 
happiness of these Haapai children. Two native Tongan girls 
came in to visit, sat down, and instead of tucking up their skirts, 
tucked their legs to one side, placing one foot over the other 
and beating time with toe and ankle. There in that little grass 
hut, squatting like toads under a leaf, we proved the Friendly 
Islands' hospitality. 

HOUSE AND HOME 

r^¥^ jHERE is no place like the lowly thatched cottage of a 
I A i Tongan. It is boat-shaped, a kind of Noah's Arkitec- 
j^^^l ture, woven like a basket and roofed with strips of 
^^^mI screw-palm and dried pandanus. There are no win- 
dows to hang an ice or milk card in, to spy on your neighbors or 
to hurry and shut in a storm. Ventilation and a dim religious 
light enter through the leafy wall. The one or two doors, or 
holes, in the sides of the hut never have rusty hinges or slam 
in your face. It is a little house and has little in it. In place of 
rugs there are small mats of cocoanut leaves. The sleeping 
pandanus mats are restful to them, but would bring me bugs 
and everything else but sleep. Instead of a magic mat to take 
you to dreamland, it is a wrestling mat where you struggle with 
bugs and centipedes. The bamboo pillows resemble execu- 
tioner's blocks. There is no "strong box" for valuables, only 
a cedar one with lock and key standing handy to keep a fancy 
dress or hat, and fans and combs, a foot long, made from the 
mid-rib of the cocoa-palm and woven with thread or human 
hair in beautiful design. There is a cooling pot for the hot 
stuff cooked outside, and a flashlight or lantern throws its 
gloomy glare on the family circle at night gathered around the 



78 TONGA 

big, blue, bloated, kava bowl. The more modern houses are made 
of concrete, iron-roofed, plastered, and hammered into the 
boat-shape of the reed and thatched hut. They are ugly, but 
keep out the rain and wind and keep in the stale air and heat, 
Tongans live in these queer little houses and are proud 
and hold their heads high. They said God first made the Ton- 
gans, then the pigs, and then the white men. The hoggish way 
some of the whites have acted towards the natives, in grabbing 
lands and goods, puts them in a much lower class than animals 
with curly tail and grunt that run in and out of the huts at 
pleasure. A native village, with its little huts nestling among 
cocoanut trees, and surrounded by breadfruit and bananas, is 
a charming sight. When I left this thatched home sweet home, 
I put some money in the baby's hand, the little fingers clutched 
round it, the ma and grandpa were pleased, and we were more 
than repaid. 

CHAIN OF EVENTS 

I HE sky cleared, and we cleared out through endless 
cocoanut and banana groves to the other side of the 
island. Instead of sand there was brown coral, the 
breakers roared on the reef, and the only beach- 
combers were the waves. We rested under old gnarled trees 
that had breasted many a storm, gathered shells and coral, and 
decided this would be a perfect spot for another Crusoe wreck. 
Little huts, schools and a church were passed on our way back 
to the boat. Everybody here waits for their ships to come in. 
Though few and far between, like most angel 's visits, they bring 
them tin can food for their stomach and newspaper pabulum 
for their minds. Then there is a feast, followed by another 
famine. These people seem as far away and lonely as the man 
in the moon. 

At dinner we were startled by a rattling racket, as if an 
endless anchor had been let down. It was a chain they were 
trying to load on a lighter and send ashore. Our chain gang 
of natives let it break away, and down it went. The mate 
noticed the last gurgle where it sank and marked it with a 
buoy. Early next morning he was out there in a rowboat with 
a Fijian, who jumped overboard and located the chain. The 





TONGA 79 



diver came up and reported, dived again, fastened a rope to it, 
came up blowing and smiling, and hitched the rope to the der- 
rick. The winches turned, the chain was landed in the lighter, 
and what I thought was an impossible task was done as easily 
as picking up a dog-chain from a barn floor. I had such admi- 
ration for that strong, sensible Fijian that I was sure he could 
find the "missing link." 

SWALLOWS' CAVE 

[E WEIGHED anchor, I don't know how many pounds, 
for a six hours' run to the Vauvau group. Unlike the 
low coral islands, it was thrown up by a volcano's 
sick stomach. The "Atua" sailed by islands, penin- 
sulas, foaming reefs, white beaches, sapphire winding bays and 
headlands full of yawning caves. It was March 17th, and the 
Tongan islands were wearing the green. They looked as if 
shaken out of the divine dicebox. 

Neifau, Vauvau 's port, was five miles distant, and there 
was something worth seeing before reaching it. The ship's 
steam launch was lowered in a pouring rain, and we started 
out on a choppy sea for the nearby island of Copa, to see the 
Swallows' Cave. 

Unlike the cave at Capri, where you duck to enter, we 
sailed boldly into the narrow mouth with its big tooth-like rock 
hanging overhead. It was dark as a pocket until a sailor lit a 
flambeau. In the green and blue glare we saw the beautiful 
frescoes and designs of sailors' names and tourists' initials 
daubed in tar, paint and smoke on all sides of the cave. The 
interior of this cathedral, cave, or whatever else you please to 
call it, is some 200 feet around and 100 feet high. Just below 
the roof is an odd-shaped stalactite column, and the light re- 
flected from it and the roof revealed the coral in the water be- 
neath. There is a hole at the top of the cave, and the light 
fell on a big stalagmite column that rises from the water. The 
sailor struck it with a boat hook until it rang out like a bell- 
buoy. There was a flap of startled wings, and the frightened 
birds that flew out of Swallows' Cave were bats. Another sur- 
prise was a big black and white snake, a sea-serpent that rose 
from the water and crawled on a rock as if to measure the 



80 TONGA 

height and depth of the cave with his tape-like skiu. We saw 
and left this much read of and dreamed about South Sea cavern 
— a robbers' roost of darkness, dampness, initials, bats and 
snakes. 

CAVE DWELLERS 



ARINER'S cave is not far from here though it can 
only be seen with a diving suit and pulmotor aid. 
^^^^1 Annette Kellermann might enter it — some who have 
'^saoiBEa^ tried were drowned in the attempt. The story goes 
that a young Tongan chief, who was hungry for turtle soup, 
made a dive of several feet, and swimming thirty feet under 
water, came up to breathe and 'found himself in a big cave. 
It seems he was in love with a beautiful princess whose parents 
objected to the match and made his courting very difficult. One 
day he covered her with palm leaves, loaded her in his canoe as 
cargo, and sailed to the submarine cave. He stripped her and 
himself of a necktie suit not even suitable for a bathing suit, and 
asking her to jump over with him, and hold to his toe, or follow 
the light of his heels, he swam down and reached the cave's 
bridal chamber. He kept her here safe and sound until the 
family storm blew over, when he brought her home high and 
dry. They were married and lived unhappily ever afterwards. 
Mariner heard the story, went to England and wrote about 
it. Byron read it and was inspired to give us ''The Island," 
a story of the cave and its surroundings. The cave is called 
Oma-Uka, diving, or Mariner's cave, a good place for mermaids, 
mermen and all venturesome travelers v/ho want to come back 
and tell a story. In 1884 Captain Luce of the Royal navy 
risked his way into this cave, but coming out rose too soon and 
was so badly cut by the sha.rp coral rocks that he died. 

VAUVAU'S POW-WOW 

T WAS raining, yet the approach to Vauvau, by 

island, cliff, wood and bay v^as as attractive as 

Japan's Inland Sea. Our English ship fastened at 

the concrete dock, and her arrival was celebrated with 

the flying of German flags. I wondered at it, and learned that 




TONGA 81 

was about the only flag they had, since most of the merchants 
were Germans. Vauvau is one of the Tongan group, is under 
the English protectorate, and any kind of a flag or rag pleased 
the natives who were celebrating the Tongan king's birthday. 
It was a red rag to John Euil's vision, still the officers endured 
it, for one of them confessed he was about to receive orders not 
to carry any more German passengers, mail or merchandise. 

It blew and rained, but the natives who came down to see 
us didn't seem to mind it very much. Some stood around in 
lavas and undershirts, as if they wanted their clothes washed 
on their backs. Others were held back at the end of the dock 
by the police. The crowd was dressed in colored wrappers and 
stood under umbrellas. Satisfied with looking us over, they 
went up the hill-road and along the shore-street lined with 
stores. The merchant carries muslins and cheap household 
articles which he exchanges to the natives for copra, receiving 
the big end of the bargain. He gets as much as he can for as 
little as possible, and sells and ships it with big profit. We 
followed the mob up hill in mud, the softest and deepest I ever 
swam through, and splashed down an alley over heaps of wet 
copra to the dock, where the celebration was being held. It 
kept on raining, yet this only added to the festivity of the 
occasion. There was a diving and swimming contest and a race 
between two fish rowboats. The native starter fired a shotgun 
for a signal, and the four men in each boat bent to oars that 
flew out of their locks. The crowd howled to their friends, 
and long before the buoy was reached the rowers were ex- 
hausted and looked like drowning men. Any exertion here at 
any time is difficult, and all this energy once a year was over- 
powering. 

In order to be companionable and unsuspected I had not 
ventured a single word of German on the English boat. "With 
the Union Jack in the distance, and a German storekeeper be- 
side me, I shot out some gracious and grammatical German 
that put me in favor. He immediately talked of the king and 
copra, opened his store and heart, and sold me post cards and 
stamps. 



82 TONGA 



BEFORE THE STORM 



NO RIGrS were possible, but we rigged up with rain- 
coats, gums and umbrellas for a tour of exploration. 
Up the hill to the right was a stone church, and on 
entering we found mats instead of seats for the wor- 
shippers, and walls decorated with effigies of Saviours and saints. 
Just outside, by a lone tree, there was a pyramid-shaped ship- 
signal. It was made of white painted lattice and used as a 
marker for ships to sail by. Beyond and rising from a two 
stone base layer was a stone cross to guide the thoughts and 
souls of any who might sink with Peter's doubt, and be saved 
by his Master's faith. 

Slipping down the muddy hill we passed wood and iron 
roofed houses and came to a native thatched village. It was 
embowered in a garden of luscious green oranges, graceful 
cocoanut palms, thickets of flaming red hibiscus and white 
frangipanni blossoms. There was a church, and we rolled away 
the stone from its sepulchre door and entered. The wind was 
holding service, the rain was entering the broken windows, and 
a large cocoanut palm outside was stretching its hand in bless- 
ing. This place had seats for the worshippers and a mourners' 
bench for the sinners. Instead of going forward we sat and 
leaned against the posts which were all bound round with a 
sinnet string. 

Leaving the rain to offer floods of penitential tears we 
started towards a miserable little shed where a man was cooking 
his meal. Dirty black pigs and children went in and out at 
pleasure. The old chief invited us in and pointed to the yams 
and taro he was preparing before a big blazing fire that looked 
and felt very good in a drizzle. 

In broken English he urged us to wait and eat. The rain 
was falling down his back as he pointed to the gray sky and 
said, * ' Hurricane ? ' ' He looked like the husband of one of Mac- 
beth 's witches. I said, "No hurricane," though it was then 
growing dark and the wind was rising. He echoed my words 
in an incredulous way, as if I were no prophet, or only a false 
one. For fear I hadn't told the truth, and there might be one, 
I stopped at a big native church fitted with seats and a pulpit 
for the most faithful and fastidious. There was a Bible and 



TONGA 83 



some song books in the Tongan tongue that I no more understood 
than the model of the ship suspended over the pulpit. Whether 
it was an ad, ornament, pictorial object lesson to illustrate 
Noah's Ark, or the final voyage to be made between the shores 
of time and eternity I couldn't make out, and so went out. 
The last thing I saw before going aboard was the fat, famous 
Finau floundering like a hippo in the mud. 

I remained on ship that evening and played the piano on 
a keyboard that grew damper and wetter as the storm rose. The 
piano was "stuck" on the wet weather, and got flatter every min- 
ute. Evelyn de la Nux and the boys went ashore to the post- 
master's house. He had married a native and was the father of 
many daughters. 

While many bachelor sports make money and love to native 
girls, and then skip away, there are other men who marry a 
native and remain with her half-caste children. This marriage- 
tie is a cable that holds them from going home to their native 
land. They settle down satisfied in this semi-native existence, 
with an occasional European letter or paper, set of furniture 
and stock of canned goods. 

The girls played the pianola, and spent the evening between 
playing it and jumping up to look at the barometer, for it 
was falling, like everybody's spirits. The disastrous hurricane 
of a few months before had begun the same way. 

I went to bed early, but shot up about three A. M., with 
the wind blowing great guns. On deck I met Captain Fletcher, 
a mild, clerical-looking man, who could swear for five minutes 
without repeating himself. He was in charge of the Fijian 
crew, and had not slept a wink as he was trying to get the 
copra loaded from the warehouse to the boat. It was useless, 
for the Fijians were so frightened that they crawled into the 
warehouse and hid among the copra sacks. 

NATIVE VAUDEVILLE 



COPRA must be loaded dry or it spoils, and since the 
rain was coming down in sheets they had a holiday. 
Later in the morning some Tongans came down to 
the wharf, the men dressed in lava-lavas and the 
women in gowns. We looked down on them from our prison 
ship and they glanced up to us free and funny. They were 



84 TONGA 

Neptune's sons and daughters and gave exhibitions of aquatic 
sports. Men climbed a high ladder to the top of the copra 
shed and dived off, and when they came up, stood under a 
water spout to let the rain wash the salt out of their hair. 
Boys and girls ran after one another and pushed each other 
off the wharf with a ten-foot splash. Some walked to the edge, 
put their arms around each other in strong embrace, a few 
played leap frog, and one wrapped his legs around his girl's 
hips, and holding her by the shoulders, jumped. Laughing 
and talking, the women came near our Fijian gang in their 
wet, clinging diaphanous robes and rags that revealed more 
than concealed their bronze breasts and bodies. Some only 
seemed to be wrapped in a sheet of rain or veiled like Venus 
in phantom robe of spray. The storm grew stronger, so did 
the native performance. A Fijian climbed high to dive deep, 
when the wind blew his lava-lava from his body as a streamer 
from a mast, to his great dismay and the delight of the 
Tongan natives. Their spirits rose with the wind, and some 
of the boys and girls about high noon gave some high jinks 
in the form of a dance that was a combination of the Samoan, 
Tongan, Fijian and Hawaiian dances. Oh, nymphs, semi-nude 
and naughty ! Your dance, with its ecstatic frenzy, flying hair 
and skirt, was very nympholeptic. A continuous performance 
ran until dark and we showed our appreciation by throv/ing 
apples. 

IN THE HURRICANE 

EANWHILE the barometer was falling and the storm 
rising. The natives on shore were busy tying their 
K^^3l houses down and the merchants putting on their hurri- 
"""" cane doors and shutters. Tongans swam out to row- 
boats in the bay and sunk them instead of bringing them ashore 
where they might be pounded to pieces. Yachts were stripped 
of sail and cleared of deck and made fast with extra chains 
and anchors. And what of us? The captain tied us up to the 
concrete wharf with seventeen big cables and hawsers. The 
doors of the copra sheds were locked and nailed, and at dark 
our Tongan performers started home, bending double before 
the wind. 




TONGA 85 

There was no seasickness in this land-locked harbor, yet we 
all looked pale and green at the dinner table. I ate a little 
more than usual for ballast and before we had finished Merlon 
left the table and cheered us up by playing "Nearer, My God, 
to Thee," on the piano. He thought it was funny. A few of 
the passengers wore a sickly smile, some tittered hysterically, 
but he was not encored. The fact was we were never more 
serious at a funeral, since it might be ours before morning. I 
asked the captain what was doing, and he said, "Wait till ten 
o'clock tonight and you will see." 

The "Atua" had no hurricane deck when we started, but 
now every deck was a hurricane deck. Darkness was over us, 
roar around us, water under us and everything so dismal that 
we went to bed early and hoped to forget it all. I went to my 
cabin seclusion and security to pray the Christ of Gralilee might 
still this storm. 

About midnight I was awakened by the bombardment of 
the wind and an awful crash. Opening my eyes I found the 
lights turned on and my wife pinning something to her waist. 
"What are you doing?" I asked. "Pinning my money and 
ticket on, so that if I am blown away in the hurricane I will 
have something to get home with." 

As a precaution, I had retired half-dressed and was soon 
up groping through the dark alley and up the saloon stair that 
resembled a cascade. The rain was leaking overhead from the 
boat-deck and sky-light, making lakes on the carpet and soak- 
ing the sofa. The piano looked like a stranded boat on which 
the water was playing the "Ocean Roll." I passed the cabin 
where a Samoan half-caste boy, clad in his nightgown, was pray- 
ing and counting his beads, while beads of tears and sweat 
rolled down his face. On the saloon sofa, as if the rain had 
not already soaked it enough, lay a young girl in a shower of 
tears. The captain and first officer were on deck, running 
about in bare feet, with lanterns in their hands, charging 
against the shrapnel of the rain and cannonading of the wind. 
Down on the dock one or two lights moved about as the sailors 
paused to see if the cables and the posts were holding. By 
this dim light I could see the doors of the copra shed had blown 
away, frightened Fijian faces peering out of the darkness, 
and on land specks of light moving here and there as if anxious 



86 TONGA 



owners were looking to see where their houses had gone. The 
one thing I saw more than anything else was a barometer that 
until now had seemed more for ornament than use. It was the 
object of all attention because it had gone down to 29.13, a 
point that made us wish we were far out at sea with a chance 
in the storm, and not tied to a wharf to be battered about. 

Aeolus is a wind-jammer, the inspiration of many an orator 
and the desperation of the sailor. He shuts the winds up in 
his cave, looses them and calls them back at Neptune's com- 
mand. 

The wind is the world's best traveler. He makes a Marathon 
race across the sea, and hitting up the pace from breeze, to a 
pace moderate, fresh and stormy, hurricanes all the way from 
one to a hundred and twenty feet a second. Whether regular 
or periodic, he is a slave-master who lashes the waves. 

The wind rushed, roared and raved, shrieked and screamed 
at our cables. I have been introduced to vernal winds that fan 
the cheek of infancy and the fevered face of old age; trade 
winds that go right along and mind their own business; cold 
winds from the frozen North or hot from the torrid South; 
winds gentle as a kiss or furious as a storm ; winds that whistle 
like a school boy or wail like a lost soul; bogy winds that 
squall and scare and are full of frets and fits; winds that blow 
no good; wanton winds that caress the neck of land, limbs of 
trees and arms of shore; rough old gales, but I never had the 
pleasure of meeting a mad hurricane that smites a ship and 
laughs at its wreck. It is an escaped maniac that runs amuck 
and destroys all in its path; a howling dervish that spins 
around and yells; the one untamable savage in the South Seas; 
the one thing that ought to be arrested for speeding. 

They sow the wind down here and reap the hurricane, and 
whether we like the symphonies or not the chief wind-instru- 
ment in Hell's orchestra is the hurricane. Some members of 
our party felt they would not receive the full value of their 
money unless there was a hurricane, the rip-snorter kind that 
hisses like an arrow, slashes the palms, mops up the pineapple 
patches with cocoanut branches, makes the native yards and 
plantations look weary and worn and tears off the roofs of 
houses and hurls huts and fences into destruction. I had my 
money's worth without this hurricane. In East St. Louis I 




TONGA 87 

saw a locomotive picked up and thrown across the street. That 
was enough for me. No more sleep, and if I was to be translated, 
like Elijah, from earth to heaven, I wanted to be wide awake and 
have my clothes on. 

WRECKED 

HE longest night has a dawn. The day came with no 
sun, the decks were covered with grass and weeds 
blown from the shore, the little bay was whipped up 
into madcap foam and the big boat that we had seen 
the night before had dragged anchor and disappeared like the 
Flying Dutchman's ship. Through the filmy curtain of the rain 
the tall palms swayed and bent their heads in grief over their 
companions who were laid low. Shrubs and fruit trees were 
snapped off, oranges and cocoanuts blown down and piled high 
in the streets; fences looked like ruined sheets of zig-zag light- 
ning; native huts were rubbish heaps in back yards; a church 
was unroofed, and I later talked with its pastor who said his 
people were poorer than ever, but willing to make big sacrifices 
to rebuild. A German trader told me the copra crop would be 
set back two years and the loss would run into thousands of 
pounds. Although thirteen inches of rain had fallen in eight 
hours, two "dry" Swedes came on board. When they learned 
I was from Minneapolis and had visited Sweden, they said, 
*'Skol," and I ''skoled" in ginger ale. 

Towards noon some natives came down to sell the oranges 
they had picked up in the storm, and others to dive and dance 
in gay skirts decorated with flowers stripped from the trees. 
They made merry, though it poured. Nothing could dampen 
their joy. We had new deck sports. The boys stood on canvas 
chairs that acted as sails while the wind blew them the length 
of the slippery decks. The captain intended to stay over night, 
or long enough to land the cargo. This was the third day we 
had been tied up and he felt we must sail, though he left much 
of the cargo behind. 



TONGA 



LOST 




jLL of us were aboard at 5:15 P. M, except three Fi- 
jians. The whistle blew and nought but echo an- 
swered. Were they killed, blown away, lost, strayed 
or stolen? The last, I think, for some beautiful siren 
Tongans were last seen talking to them. If beauty draws with 
a single hair, what capillary attraction there must be between 
men and women who have more hair than anything else? It 
is an open secret that the Fijian men love the Tongan women. 
They used to sail up here and get the pretty Tongan girls for 
wives before the missionaries came. Of course, this was un- 
gallant and caused jealousy and heart-ache among the Fijian 
girls, who felt they were as big, shiny and attractive as their 
lighter colored sisters. Now every trip is a novel "Three 
Weeks" experience. When the Fiji crew comes to Tonga some 
long-haired Samsons remain behind with the dancing Delilahs 
until the next boat comes, when they are looked up and re- 
turned, for the ship is responsible for their bodies if not their 
souls. 

CAST UP 

ORE rain and wind and three inches of water on the 
deck! A man paddled by me in rubber boots, sou'- 
wester coat, and a hat under which I saw the white 
face and determined look of Captain Wallis as he 
hurried to the bridge. The bell rang, the full steam that had 
been kept up for emergency since we had lain in dock sighed 
relief; the screws turned and churned; sixteen cables were 
loosened, only one had given way to the storm and pulled up 
the piling, and as we waved good-bye to the Tongans and the 
shores we might never see again, the "Atua" rolled out of the 
harbor into the teeth of the storm in the fast growing dark to 
get out into the deep sea, away from the rocks, reefs, headlands 
and islands which surround the harbor. 

Can you imagine what the sea was after a three days ' blow ? 
Our ship was tossed up and around like a rowboat. We shipped 
seas and the islands we had passed coming in were beleaguered 
by big waves that hurled themselves against the bases, climbed 




TONGA 89 

up the sides, madly broke over their palmy tops 100 feet in the 
air and fell down the other side in cascades of spray. It was 
a miniature Niagara, glorious with thunder and foam. 

Our good ship was on end and so were we with motion and 
commotion. A few passengers went to dinner from force of 
habit, but soon came up. My wife said, "I'm going to lose my 
dinner," and before she could get to the rail she lost it on the 
deck. ''L" said, "I'll put mine where she put hers," but 
was very noisy in making the transfer. Mary said, "I can't 
stand it, and here goes mine from pure sympathy." Not to be 
outdone, I chipped in and said, "I can throw mine as far as 
anybody," and did. Many others were doing the same thing, 
with this difference, that we used the deck and ocean for spew 
pans, while they were filling their cabins and bunks. Sad that 
when all nature was so fearful and sublime, human nature 
showed "how poor a thing is man." 

A DESOLATE ISLAND 

FTER a delightful stay at Samoa, we stopped near 
Niuafoou, a little island with a big name. It belongs 
to Tonga, is less than ten miles in circumference, is 
round, volcanic and has the reputation for producing 
the biggest cocoanuts in the world. We saw no nuts or much 
else, save a few natives on the bluff. A recent hurricane had 
cut off the tops of the cocoanut trees as if with a knife and 
blown them over and around until the trunks and trees looked 
like a log- jam. None of the huts and houses had been left un- 
touched, for everywhere was wreckage of fence and roof. The 
poor people had picked up stray pieces of timber and were try- 
ing to put them together like a puzzle. The hurricane broke 
the trees and houses and our arrival broke their monotony, for 
they all came down to see us, dressed in their white nightgown 
Hubbards. The shore is ragged with rocks. The sea is so rough 
here that no ship can dock, and I knew what the little Tongan 
boy meant when he wrote in his copybook, "The island of 
Niuafoou is very awful." Though wind, waves and rocks are 
rough, the natives seemed unruffled. They live on fruit and 
tinned stuff and it is only natural that their mental food of 
papers, letters and magazines should be "canned." 




90 TONGA 



TIN CAN MAIL 

TIO lighten the dark places of the earth, the officers took 
J an empty coal oil can and filled it with letters and 

literary matter, to which we had contributed some 
dog-eared magazines and letters mailed to ourselves. 
The can was soldered, made waterproof and thrown overboard. 
A sturdy native postman was soon seen beating and brushing 
the waves and floating astride of a pole to which was attached 
a tin box of mail in exchange for the one we were to give him. 
It was a kind of lettre de cachet, and he had to catch it for he 
had come three miles to catch it, and if he didn 't he would catch 
it when he got back to shore. Officer Adkins threw it over, and 
as the man caught it I caught him with the kodak. He wrestled 
with the waves, went up and down like a bobber to a fish 
line, till, half exhausted, he neared the rocky shore, where his 
male friends drew him and his tin box in. We sighed with 
relief. The postoffice civil service here only requires a man 
shall be able to swim. The other offices are limited to natives 
who work on the cocoanut plantation, when the hurricane leaves 




any, or spend their leisure time in talking about each other. 

SWIMMING ASHORE 

I HE captain gave a permit for one passenger to land 
if he could, to remain there a month until the 
next boat came, and further permission also to a cocoa- 
nut trader who wanted to get a list of necessary sup- 
plies for the inhabitants who were in a starving condition on 
account of the late hurricane. 

First Mate Adkins and five others were lowered in a boat 
with the two men who wanted to land. It looked like a maroon- 
ing trip. Their boat bobbed like a cork — to land was impossi- 
ble; so the natives ran down to a jutting rock and threw out a 
rope. Our traveler pulled off his coat and jumped into the 
sea like Schiller's diver, came up again, and as he swam and 
struggled in the waves, grabbed the rope and was hauled ashore. 
All this time the inhabitants were enjoying this movie spec- 
tacle. Another rope was thrown, the boat came nearer the 
breakers and caught it, and the passenger's valise and precious 




THE TIN CAN MAIL 



NIUAFOOU, TONGA 





4 1 *. 



TONGAN BELLES 



TONGA 91 

bundle of clothes and films were passed over and pulled in like 
a fish. The wet goods were safely landed. The other man fol- 
lowed suit and his clothes were equally wet and needed pressing. 
The passengers on the ship enjoyed the show as much as the 
natives on shore, although it was a serious matter. The mate's 
white suit mingled with the white of the waves as he directed 
these toilers of the sea. It was another scene for a Hugo to 
describe. We watched their struggle and spent our extra breath 
in prayer that they might return safely, and they did. Tourist 
facilities at this island are unique. If blase pleasure-seekers 
want a new thrill, let them try and land here. 

NIUAFOOU NOTES 

I HE island is volcanic, and its crater can hardly be 
blamed for getting sick of its isolation and vomiting 
occasionally. Some years ago, when it was active, the 
captain offered to take the natives away to another 
island, but they preferred to remain because they loved its 
loneliness. There is a lake in the center, with no vegetation 
around it. "When the natives are meat-hungry, they are per- 
mitted to kill the wild cattle. They raise cocoanuts and ship 
their copra by sliding it down a chute to a lighter. 

Though this island is near Fiji the Tongans own it. In 
Chief Finau's day some young sports drifted here and found 
some fine Fijian wood, canoes and clubs. They went back to 
Tonga, made bigger and better canoes and clubs, came back to 
Niuafoou, whipped their teachers and grabbed several isles in 
this Windward group. Thus hurricane and pirates early spoiled 
it. Nevertheless this fleet of islands is firmly anchored, in 
spite of storm and volcano, and has not yet drifted from its 
moorings. The Tongan pirates became associated with Fijian 
customs and are more Fijian than Tongan in their work, dance 
and play. 




mm 



92 TONGA 



BLACK BIRDERS 

T I HERE'S a piece of land with an interesting bit of 
I history in the Friendly group. It is called Pylstaart. 
A ship anchored there in 1891 and the curious natives 
came near and were invited by the captain to climb 
the ladders and come up on deck. They did this, and looking 
into the open hatches saw a mine of wealth in the shape of guns, 
money, ornaments and fishing tackle. It was wonderful, but 
the most wonderful thing was when they were asked to go down 
and help themselves. What followed was the story of the 
spider and the fly. They went down and did not come up, for 
the hatchways were closed and they were carried away in slavery, 
with the exception of the old chief, who jumped overboard and 
escaped amid a shower of bullets. 

The. white men loved to hunt. There were few birds in the 
islands, so they hunted these black people, made a blacklist 
passenger list and sold their blackbird game into slavery. This 
was as dark as anything in Africa. 

The natives were promised wages in trade, worked hard and 
were given rubbish and junk instead of money. No wonder 
their relatives put the white men on the blacklist and became 
mad, murdering devils whenever they got a chance. The heart- 
less story of the black birder makes a very black page in South 
Sea history. The English government was not guiltless in this 
game, and after moral indigation from within and out had been 
brought to bear, the ' ' blackbird, ' ' like the Dodo, became a thing 
of the past. This bad condition of affairs cried to heaven for 
vengeance, and Lincoln's God sent it to hell. The memory of 
this outrage still rankles, and no white man or nation can ever 
gain the respect or love of kind, innocent people, who happen 
to be brown or black, by acting like the devil towards them. 

TONGAN TRAITS 

N the Tongan group there are about a hundred islands, 
some of which Tasman discovered in 1643 and Cook 
visited three times. As a people they are happy and 
innocent, according to their history, and simple, 
generous and polite. The Wesleyans have helped the natives 
in religion and morals. Some of the missionaries' best work 




TONGA 93 



was done with a hammer and a medicine chest, not with the 
sword of doctrinal discussion. Too often the natives, whom the 
Creator had given shelter, food and clothing, had their sim- 
plicity, purity and prosperity spoiled hy the white man's laws 
and examples. 

The Tongans had a spiritual and temporal power. Both 
offices were hereditary and supposed to be descended from the 
gods. The earthly king was stronger than the heavenly and 
could not enter the home of the spiritual Tui- Tonga chief unless 
invited. 

The Tongans are fine-appearing. They have well-shaped 
heads and look bright and intelligent. Their mouth is large, 
lips full, nose rather broad at the base but well cut, teeth white 
and strong, and their eyes as burning as their skies. 

No longer do they wrestle and dance gracefully. Alack, 
their laka-laka dance is no more as of old. Civilization is so 
often a vulgar veneer that one wishes they had kept their own 
religion, old sports, games and m.anners which made the men 
brave, the women kind and generous and all of them less afraid 
to die than now. It is difficult and often disastrous to graft 
European political and religious ideas on South Sea natives, 
yet from a commercial and moral point of view England has 
effected some real good in her colonies. 

Poor little Tonga Islands, with less than 25,000 souls — but 
proud little Tonga declaring her neutrality in the Franco- 
Prussian war and her determination now to be unpartizan be- 
tween Germany and the Allies. Some people have elephantiasis 
of foot and hand ; Tongan natives have it in their head, for it is 
big and swelled. Yet she is to be admired in spite of her pov- 
erty and pride when it is remembered that less than 100 years 
ago Tonga was scarcely known, cannibalism was practiced, vis- 
itors were not allowed except at feasts, and Christianity had 
not come with its doctrine of brotherhood. 





48 HOUR DAY 

|EAVING Vauvau we rolled all that Friday night, were 
tempest-tossed Saturday, and to feel at peace with the 
world Sunday and give the sea and ourselves a chance 
to calm down, called the next day Saturday, too, mak- 
ing the two Saturdays a long Saturday of 48 hours. You see, 
we picked up a day that had been torn from the calendar, 
dropped overboard and left floating around. Crossing meridian 
180 to Australia you lose a day, returning you gain one. I 
hope this is clear to the reader, for on the sea it is very con- 
fusing. Captain Wallis could stand two Saturdays, but not 
two Sundays. The crew was compelled to work two days, but 
on the way back lost one and so evened things up. Think of the 
awful calamity of having two Sundays on shipboard, with a 
crew without work and the passengers compelled to hear two 
services from purser, captain or minister. 

All were up early, the 30th hour of this 48-hour day, to 
watch the passengers parade the decks in pajamas and bath- 
robes, for the air was balmy and every one was anxious to see 

94 




SAMOA 95 

the beautiful island of Upolu, Samoa. Over went the anchor, 
and through the glass I saw Apia and the Union Jack flying 
over German Samoa, 

Martial law prevailed. It was no longer German, but Eng- 
lish Samoa. The New Zealander had come in and taken pos- 
session several months before and we were informed we couldn't 
come back to the boat with more than 25 dollars. That was 
easy, for we didn't have very much. The question was, what 
could we do on shore with even that amount ? 

A LOVING ENEMY . 

HAT I most wanted to see was ^'Yailima," Robert Louis 
Stevenson's home, until recently the German consul's 
headquarters. There was only one way. A Mrs. Cot- 
ton of Auckland was en route to Apia to see her soldier 
husband. "We had been friends on ship board and I helped her 
discover him in the harbor. When he came on board she in- 
troduced him to my wife. When I spoke of "Vailima," he 
said things were different now, but he would write me a letter 
of introduction to Mr. Conrad, the German keeper, who would 
show us around. Armed with the letter, we stepped into a 
rowboat manned by "three-fingered Jack" and crew. We 
passed the rusty shell of the wrecked German warship ' ' Adler, ' ' 
the only one of the fated three American and three German 
vessels to be seen. March 16th and 17th, 1889, they were all 
riding at anchor in the bay when they were hurled on the 
coral reef by the hurricane and beaten to pieces. The ships 
had tried to uphold a Samoan king and depose another, but 
Neptune, with his great guns of wind, blew them all to bits. 
Then the best sermon on ''Love your enemies" was preached 
by the heathen king, Seumanatofa. He and his brave people 
rushed from the shore to the rescue, saved the soldiers and 
sailors, treating them as hospitably with food, shelter and cloth- 
ing as the Barbarians did the shipwrecked Apostle Paul in the 
Adriatic. Virtue and valor were a something plus their own 
reward. Uncle Sam gave Seumanatofa a fine boat and a heavy 
gold watch and chain big enough to anchor it. 




96 SAMOA 



APIAN WAYS 

INSTEAD of natives sv/iinming out to meet us, we were 
welcomed by New Zealand soldiers who surrounded us, 
saying the water was fine. It was beginning to be warm 
enough to make me think so. As we left the dock and 
walked on the sand to the street, curio-sellers offered us beads, 
shells, fans, flowers and baskets. I noticed one woman, short and 
fat, who wore a big fig-leafed Mother Hubbard. Though quite 
young, she had a heavy head of perfectly white hair. Poor 
thing! I thought, some great grief or fright must have done it. 
My sympathy was wasted. The scare that turned her hair white 
was the scare of a small insect that escapes the teeth of a fine 
comb. Every Saturday the native women plaster their hair with 
lime, so that when they go to church Sunday morning they may 
have a fresh yellow coiffure. This is sanitary and as stylish as 
the peroxide hair of a New York society blonde. 

Nothing hurries here except the hurricane. After a long 
wait, "Jack" came back with a little two-wheeled cart that 
would have delighted a child in a kindergarten. I told him it 
was very short to be so long getting it, and he replied the 
British soldiers had grabbed all the strong horses for the army. 
I suppose this one was so small it had escaped notice. Three 
of us piled in a rig where only one could be comfortable, and 
"Jack" furnished a native guide, who took the horse by the 
bridle and began to pull us up to "Vailima," four miles away. 

We were on the "Ala Sopo" main road and all soppy wet, 
for we hadn't bargained to push the horse and cart up the hill. 
But we had to do it. Sisyphus had a cinch with a stone that 
would roll up, but here was a balky horse that had to be pulled 
in front and pushed behind, while the guide belabored him on 
the side. The thermometer was over a hundred degrees, the 
road was rough and stony under foot, but there were com- 
pensating glimpses on the side — houses banked with ferns and 
flowers; little huts with love and a sewing machine and little 
else but babies; native boys swinging down the road carrying 
bunches of fruit on a pole across their shoulders; fifty girls 
from the Mission school in pink, blue and green Mother Hub- 
bards, carrying baskets of fruit, sewing and embroidery. They 
were dark, yet carried umbrellas for style and sun-burn, and 
were bare-headed, footed and legged. The soldiers were not the 




LIME-HAIRED NATIVE 



APIA, SAMOA 




^i^" v-^V^ <> 



NATIVE HOUSE AND GRAVE 



SAMOA 




SAMOA 97 

only ones well armed, for these girls had beautiful arms and 
elbows. They looked at us with a smile as if to say, ''Can't you 
come along ? ' ' We wished we could, for they were all out for a 
holida,y, to swim and fish. If I had not had the religious duty 
of visiting Stevenson 's grave with my wife, I would gladly have 
played fisherman to these mermaids. 

FLY TIME AND TEXT 

NATIVE school was passed whose looks entitled it to 
a credit mark, as well as pretty flowered yards and 
homes, and a bathing pool where the soldiers were 
driving dull care away. We were kept busy, for when 
we stopped pushing the horse we were compelled to fight the 
flies. There were millions of them and sticky as molasses. They 
crawled, buzzed, made punctuation marks on my white suit and 
gave us a fly time. They have fly-dusters here and use them as 
in India and Egypt. Unlike the Samoan natives, the flies and 
fleas are busy all the time and stick to their job. 

Flies and mosquitoes are the only birds I saw. If they 
annoyed me, how much more of a pest they must have been to 
the natives, who have so many more feet of bare skin exposed? 
They have a Pandora box legend that a Samoan girl showed the 
curiosity of her sex. Instead of taking the lid off a box, she 
took a knife and split two bamboo tubes to see what they con- 
tained. She found out, for she let out the plague of flies from 
the one and mosquitoes from the other. 

A fly is a two-winged insect that acts as a scavanger to carry 
away filth or an agent to transmit disease. 

Literature is full of files. Homer compares an army to flies ; 
Decker says men are untamable as flies ; Shakespeare declares 
men are to the gods to be killed for sport as flies are to wanton 
boys. One of the Seven Wise Men wrote, ''Laws are like cob- 
webs where the small flies are caught and the great ones break 
through." Lovelace writes a poem and Parnell an eclogue on 
"flies." Aesop uses a fly as a text on vanity, telling how one 
sat on the axle-wheel of a chariot, boasting, "What a dust do I 
raise," while in his "Flies and Honey" fable he shows how 
they were drawn by its sweetness, put their feet in it, ate 
greedily, but were so smeared with the honey they could not get 



9$ SAMOA 

out, were suffocated, and while expiring exclaimed, "0 foolish 
creatures that we are, for the sake of a little pleasure we have 
destroyed ourselves." 

The Bible frequently refers to flies, and the writer of our 
text, Solomon, lived where the people used much aromatic oil. 
It was the chief business of the druggist to prepare it and place 
it in alabaster vases. So delicate was it that a small dead fly 
spoiled its substance and odor. Finding preaching in perfume, 
as Shakespeare found sermons in stones, the royal writer says 
this illustrates character which may be splendid in many ways, 
but a single, small imperfection spoils all. 

How many flies, flaws and failings poor human nature is 
heir to ! 

Selfishness — The taproot of all sin was the desire to eat the 
apple and please self and not God. Today it shows itself in 
what forgets another's right and takes his money, business and 
wife. It is the prolific father and mother of war, robbery and 
murder. 

Irritability — Some souls are ever tempest-tossed, not occa- 
sionally like an Alpine lake, but like the Bosphorus, with cease- 
less whirl, eddy and countercurrent that nearly upsets your boat 
and always overturns your stomach. 

Rudeness — Many people are unnecessarily blunt and rough 
and sneer when a smile would do. They quote John, Elijah and 
Luther and try to use their weapons without having their big 
battles to fight. Too often we forget the word "Christian" 
means courtesy and that there is a wide difference between the 
ferocity of an animal and the courage of a Christian. 

Careless Dress — Clothes not only make the man and woman, 
but unmake them as well. Many lovers who spend much time 
and money for dress during courtship soon after marriage look 
like perfect frights, and it is not to be wondered at that they 
cease to be attractive and Cupid flies away. How sad ! her dress 
a wrapper ; his delight, one around a cigar ! 

Slang — Many words coarse in man are profane in woman. 
Slang seldom emphasizes and a good word is always nearby 
and better. Slang may carry conviction, but often brings the 
user down to the level of vulgarity. To sail by its dead reckon- 
ing is to reach strange latitudes where the true and beautiful 
are not discovered. 



SAMOA 99 

Slander — The thing that splashes with slime of hell white 
Magnolia souls, which can't be touched without contamination, 
is slander. Slander is the sword that cuts the heart until it 
silently bleeds to death; the scorpion lash that stings and scars. 

Gossip — There are some evil hearts that think more of one 
sin found out than ninety-nine forsaken. The doctrine of total 
depravity need not be denied so long as there are so many peo- 
ple in public and private life who love to think, surmise, whis- 
per, talk and write gloatingly over details which they distort 
and change to contrary and evil meaning. It were well if the 
tongue of the talker could be pinned to the ear of the listener 
and both punished. 

Fault-finding— The heart is never so repulsive as when it 
wags an unkind tongue. There is room for criticism and reason- 
able moral indignation, but heaven save us from the men and 
women who damn the sun because of its few dark spots. Hail- 
storm words only beat down what they would nourish if melted 
into rain. 

Idle Words — How many people think about nothing, talk 
about anything and laugh at everything ! How many use super- 
latives for positives and the same adjectives for the candy they 
eat or ribbon they wear as for the statue they look at and the 
symphony they hear. Idle words are often found in the stale 
jokes of the press, the ante-Methuselah illustrations of the 
clergy and the fool things said by the orator to bring down the 
house. 

Perfect we are not. The rose has thorns, the sky clouds and 
the day its night. Faults nestle in every heart in spite of 
watching, but let us seek as earnestly for perfection as if it were 
attainable here, remembering God has promised that it shall be 
ours hereafter. 

Don't let ''flies" speck and spoil your character, 

"ROAD OF GRATITUDE" 

|S travelers for a day, we were glad to rest by the road 
in native huts, whose kindly folks beckoned us to come 
in and drink cocoanuts and eat oranges. They plant 
no garden, for Nature has done that for them, but they 
do plant their dead relatives in the front yard, so that when 




100 SAMOA 

they look out from their haystack mushroom huts they can see 
the graves. There is no monument but a trellis with vines and 
flowers; no head or foot stone, only black stones in circle design 
over the grave, and big stones around it. A profane utilitarian 
of our party suggested the deceased must have been rich in 
phosphates, for there was unusual luxuriance around the grave. 
I don 't know, but it looked as if the trellis was used as a clothes- 
rack, for a newly washed gown was spread over it to dry. If 
this is true, how beautiful the thought that the dead may not 
only be near but serviceable ! 

Nearing * ' Vaiiima, "we passed a large sheet-iron store-house 
used for military supplies, and entered the * ' Road of Gratitude ' ' 
that runs from the main road a quarter of a mile to Stevenson's 
home. I have often seen chain gangs and convicts making a 
public road out of growls and gravel, but not of "gratitude." 
During the novelist's life twenty-seven Samoan prisoners were 
so glad to get out of jail or felt so kindly to Mr. Stevenson, who 
had been allowed to feed them when they were in prison, that 
they came to *' Vaiiima" and told him they wanted to show 
their love and loyalty by building this road, not for money, 
but love, "alofa" pure and simple. It was built in 1894 and 
Stevenson was delighted. He had a big social party at which 
prominent Samoans were present as well as some representative 
men of our own and other countries. They all sat on mats on 
the veranda and drank kava, were photographed, and R. L. S. 
read his familiar address, in which he spoke of the road and 
builders and declared he would live, die and be buried in Samoa. 
Seumanatofa, the hero of the hurricane, was present and made 
a speech. Chief Poe thanked the poet for his good advice, say- 
ing they would all try and live up to it. 

"We pushed the horse another quarter of a mile, and it was 
no horse-play. Horses are very human, they walk and balk 
sometimes, and some ail the time. Stevenson wrote his famous 
"Travels with a Donkey" in Cevennes and Job asked, "Who 
hath loosed the bands of the wild ass?" If both of them had 
had our tough job they could have added another volume and 
text to what they had written. We dragged into the big yard 
at "Vaiiima," with its grassy sward, flowers and fruit trees. 
No one was around. The horse stood without hitching, for he 
had hitched all the way there and was used to it. 



SAMOA 



101 



All of us were admirers of Stevenson, were familiar with his 
books and life and were glad to enter the old two-storied home 
he had built with his own hands. It was no use to look for 
souvenirs, for we knew they had all been sold or stolen years 
before, but we did want a drink, and finding some distilled 
water in a bucket on the upstairs porch, we drained the last 
drop just as Mr. Conrad appeared with a look of "How dare 
you?" I told him "why" by handing him the letter. That 
was enough, for he practically said, "Help yourself," asked if 
we wanted something more to drink, saying there was a creek 
nearby, or if we were tired of water he could bring some wine 
and beer. He was anxious to entertain us, but Merlon, "L" 
and I had no time for that, for we were in a hurry to climb 
"Mount Vaea" and make a pilgrimage to Stevenson's grave. As 
the ladies were too hot and tired to make the trip, Mr. Conrad 
kindly offered to entertain them during our absence. Accord- 
ingly we sallied out with the native who had guided us and the 
horse so far. 

A FUNERAL MARCH 

JOING back of the house, through a garden and over 
a creek, we plunged into a tropical thicket. It had 
been raining and the way was slippery with mud. 
Leaves and branches were thickly strewn over it as we 
climbed and wound up at an angle of forty-five degrees. There 
were no pleasures in these "pathless woods." A monkey could 
have reached the top easily by swinging from branch to branch 
and clinging to the vines, but I was fat and past forty and my 
monkey days were over. I had made a monkey of myself often 
on other occasions, but could not here. 

I climbed, pushed, fell over fallen tree trunks, caught my 
foot in vines, perspired, panted, paused every few yards and 
more frequently as I neared the top. There was no breath of 
air or song of bird, only the noise of startled lizards and 
hosts of bugs and insects. Once while I was clutching a 
vine it gave way and I slipped down five feet. It would have 
been more if the guide had not reached up and caught my hips 
in his two hands and held and shoved me back. I have scaled 
hills, glaciers and mountains in many world travels, but noth- 





102 SAMOA 

ing to equal this tangle and thicket. If the wicked were com- 
pelled to climb this hill on a hot day they wouldn't be so "fast" 
to go to the place of Scripture torment. Fifty minutes of this 
Excelsior business, with no snow and ice, was the hardest work 
I ever did. When at last "L" and I reached the top, lo and 
behold. Merlon sat on the tomb smoking a cigaret and drying 
his undershirt. 

STEVENSON'S GRAVE 

FELL down on the concrete slab to rest where Steven- 
son rests forever. A passing cloud took pity and sent 
a shower to refresh our tired spirits. Some people 
come here for a picnic and not a pilgrimage. A sailor 
told me he brought up a couple of cold bottles and a captain 
declared the best lunch he ever ate was on this tomb for a table. 
This is the Treasure of the Island, and the way to it is as 
difficult as the path to duty. Yet who that loves English prose, 
written by a man whose strong genius conquered his frail body, 
would hesitate to climb these heights? Love's labor was not 
lost when the sad natives cut that precipitous path up and on 
through the jungle thicket to lay their loved ''Tusitala" to 
rest. The road is now overgrown and almost impassable. If 
steps are ever undertaken to improve this path, I suggest they 
be concrete ones, about six inches high. 

The gravestone is an oblong slab of concrete and plain except 
for two little thistle and hibiscus flower ornaments. The Samoan 
translation of Ruth 's undying words of love to Naomi are 
written on one side of the tomb, and on the other some lines 
which the pilgrim takes pains to commit until the thoughts, 
words and rhyme become a part of himself and he thinks of 
them and repeats them even in his sleep : 

1850 — Egbert Louis Stevenson — 1894 
"Under the wide and starry sky, 
Dig the grave and let me lie. 
Glad did I live and gladly die ; 

And I laid me down with a will. 
This be the verse you grave for me; 
Here he lies where he longed to be. 
Home is the sailor, home from the sea. 

And the hunter home from the hill." 



ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON'S GRAVE MT. VAEA, SAMOA 




STEVENSON'S HOUSE 



"VAILIMA", SAMOA 



SAMOA 103 

Here he rests in peace, with flowers, wild vines, shrubs and 
trees around him, the sky above him, while 1,300 feet below, 
through the trees, shimmers the sunny sea and flashes the color 
of the coral reef. 

You cannot see the grave from ship or shore; you must 
climb if you would see. It is ideal as a burial place for a prose 
poet, but most of the pilgrim's ideals are shattered by the time 
he reaches the grave. The hill is as hard to climb as Parnassus 
or Zion's Hill. Admirers have suggested that a big monument 
be built that can be seen far out at sea and an easy bridle 
path leading up to it. No! His monument is the solid moun- 
tain itself, his vault the starry sky, his requiem the wind and 
the sea, the incense the wild hibiscus blossoms and his eulogy 
the prayers of his friends. 

We picked flowers and decorated the tomb, wrote our names 
on a card, not the tombstone, pinned it with an American flag 
to a wreath of vines, quoted the Twenty-Third Psalm and left 
him ' ' Under the wide and starry sky. ' ' 

Our sentimental journey was ended and we started down. 
The descent was as easy as the ascent was diflicult. A road 
can be slippery without ice, and we are told the wicked stand in 
slippery places. I couldn't have been wicked, for I tripped 
and slipped, and like a stone rolling down a mountain, tore up 
the ground, smashed trees and vines and thundered through 
the silence like an avalanche. Vainly did I clutch at vines 
and shrubs. I had started ahead of my guide and went so fast 
and far ahead of him that he could not catch me. There was 
no breeze going -up, but I raised the wind coming down, and 
bounced and bounded till I struck the bottom. My white suit was 
ruined. I stood panting and coated with mud from neck to 
heels. I had gone in search of ''local color" and got it. I did 
my sliding here on the rocks instead of at Papaseea, the official 
"sliding rock," where you sit and slide down a smooth track 
made by the water that falls into a pool below, eight feet deep. 




104 SAMOA 

"VAILIMA" 
jUNCH was ready and so was I. Entering the novelist's 
bedroom just off the porch, I noticed a trap-door in 
the floor, which the care-taker said the poet jumped 
through when he didn't care to receive visitors. I was 
so unpresentable that I was inclined to do the same thing. "We 
ate the ship sandwiches that were dry as the remainder biscuits 
after a sea voyage. "We finished the filtered water, Conrad 
brought some sweet wine and we drank all of that. The ladies 
who hadn't climbed the hill, but just sat around, were still 
thirsty and loudly asked for more. Then followed an act of 
heroic sacrifice. Conrad had not been allowed to receive his 
mail or any express boxes of original packages of beer, the good 
Munich Hof Brau that means more to a German than am- 
brosia to the gods. Yet he brought out three bottles, tenderly 
wiped off the cobwebs and the ladies' thirsty throats were irri- 
gated. 

After all this we went across the way to the ''Vailima" resi- 
dence, where Stevenson lived in style, met his friends, wrote, 
walked around in his bare feet, and died. We entered the house 
he had worked so hard to build and pay for. The place had 
been refurnished as a residence for the German governor, and 
the shot and shell from the warships that once fired on the 
natives had filled it with ventilating holes. We wandered over 
this house, as dear to the novelist as Abbotsford to Scott. "What 
a change had come over the spirit of Stevenson 's dream ! 

We came down the big staircase where Stevenson made his 
last trip. While he was laughing, he suddenly put his hand 
to his head and said, '^ What's that, do I look strange?" then 
walked to the ball room and expired. The doctors gave their 
verdict of apoplexy. The novelist was an epicure and the 
last thing he did was to supervise the making of a salad. I 
don't know whether he tasted it, but I know that salad, like 
Saul, has slain its thousands. 

THE PROSE POET 
HAD studied Stevenson in literature, visited his 
home in Edinburgh, heard of him in the South Seas 
and was anxious to visit his home at "Vailima" 
and grave at ''Mount Vaea." His life is as 
novel and interesting as any story he ever wrote. He was 




SAMOA 105 

born in Edinburgh, in 1850, tried to fit himself for the bar, 
but turned against it and went into literature. Hungry for 
material, he journeyed on foot and in canoe in France, came 
across the Atlantic as a steerage passenger, went through the 
United States in an emigrant train and lived and died in Samoa. 
He wrote many articles for the magazines and stories of travel, 
and volumes of essays, poetry and novels which show his great 
variety of talent and are full of sparkling sentences and sur- 
prising sentiment. Poor and unpopular at first, he later com- 
manded wealth and the world's admiration. He was a real man 
of flesh and blood, was willing to clasp hands with any one on 
land or sea who loved, longed and labored. He knew the loves 
and hates of men, women and children and could express them 
in a "Child's Garden of Verse" or a "Doctor Jekyll and Mr. 
Hyde." He had the heart of a boy, the head of a man and the 
hand of a friend. His life history is written in his books and 
his journey from cradle to coffin is marked by the milestones of 
sympathy and scholarship. 

ALL SUITED 

E LEFT "Vailima" so much rested that we rode 
half the way and pushed the horse the other half. On 
the road we saw an old man sitting by his hut. There 
were poles on each side of his door with dried cocoa- 
nuts strung around them, like giant knots on an oak. He smiled 
an invitation to come in and get some oranges. We took them 
and he refused pay. As the juicy nectar flowed down my hot 
and dusty throat, I wondered how many Americans would do 
as much for a stranger and become an orange aid to the weary. 
Feeling refreshed and happy, we said "Talofa" to every girl 
and loafer and would have said more to the girls if we had 
known more. A long, low, white building, with many pigeon- 
hole windows, next attracted our attention. Was it a stable 
for beast or barracks for man? Going over I found it full of 
beds and bunks and I am sure there were some other things 
that begin with "b." The day had been so hot and vigorous 
we were glad to slow up, look into the quiet, restful houses and 
enter some of them. 

Our party reached town and paid "three-fingered Jack" 
four pounds for two horses and two two-wheeled rigs we had 




106 SAMOA 

hauled up to ''Vailima" and pushed down again. I felt we had 
outdone Eichard and paid the price of a kingdom for a horse. 
The guide who had taken us up and around probably received 
two shillings and "Jack" the rest. Time's whirligig works re- 
venge. First the traders robbed the natives and now the natives 
rob the tourists. 

I am a philanthropist towards the natives and a philatelist 
of their stamps. The letters and postals I sent home are valu- 
able for their stamps if nothing else. Samoa has always jock- 
eyed in stamps for the tourist trade, but the ones I picked up 
were unlike any ever before printed. They were New Zealand 
stamps with the word "Samoa" stamped across them. 

I tried to buy some shells and souvenirs, but the natives only 
paid attention to my dirty white suit. "We were to call on the 
U. S. consul, Mr. Mitchell. It was no dress affair, but I was 
a sorry sight. Eushing into the first store, I asked the German 
proprietor if he could help me. He said he had a white suit, 
though it might be a little large. I slipped into the back room, 
slipped off my disgraceful duds, and came out as if fresh from 
Spotless Town. My pants were twelve inches too long and the 
sleeves six inches big. I turned them up, hoping the people 
would notice all the big pearl buttons on my coat, and feeling 
much better, started for our representative. 

OUR AMERICAN CONSUL 

I IS house lay around the curve of the bay, and was indi- 
cated by the big flag. There was a two-master Ameri- 
can ship that had been beached in the recent blow. 
Too bad we have so few ships on these or any waters 
that fly the glorious flag! It's all wrong, all wrong, for we 
are as good as any nation, and better than many others whose 
ships fill foreign ports. I have been made blushing, fighting 
mad for years in world travel to find how we pay foreign ships 
millions to carry us and our freight, while they offer us poor 
accommodations, charge high rates and give us the "Ha, ha" 
for being the financial fools we are. En route we saw a Chinese 
chain gang, without chains, some boys on bikes who had been 
on hikes, and many natives carrying umbrellas and babies, the 
two chief things raised in these tropical lands. . 





SAMOA 107 



Consul Mitchell is an old diplomat of large experience in 
many a tropical country of South and Central America. He 
should be rewarded with a position nearer home. After he 
and his charming wife had given us fruit and drink we went 
out on the porch and were kodaked as the U. S. flag was low- 
ered. He told us some former and recent interesting experi- 
ences. The natives here regard him as father and friend. 
Recently when the German fleet steamed in the people were 
scared to death and hid under his house, and with their cook- 
ing and living made his life miserable. 

MARTIAL LAW 

T NIGHT the streets were fuU of soldiers and natives. 
There were no movies because some time before a 
"Western cowboy film was so full of shooting, blood 
and thunder that a few of the Samoan spectators 
went out, stole guns and shot up the town, and shot down some 
of the soldiers who, in turn, shot them. The Samoans are 
called children, and like them go movie-mad. Too often the 
sight of ill deeds makes ill deeds done, A film company wanted 
to stage "Treasure Island" here, because of the Stevenson set- 
ting, but the plot was too melodramatic for the imaginative 
natives. For fear it might provoke bloodshed the authorities 
refused permission. 

The consul and wife were just ''dying" to eat a ship's 
dinner, while we were half dead because we had eaten so many. 
When the party broke up Captain Wallis took them to the boat 
and we started sight-seeing. 

It was getting dusk, and I saw dusky damsels strolling with' 
the soldier boys on the street, wandering to the bush or in swim- 
ming. The Mission girls we had seen in the morning were 
coming back happy and tired with a big string of fish. We 
walked, looking and looked at. There were no bright lights, 
but the mosquitoes found us; soldiers were on guard, and chal- 
lenged us as we crossed a bridge ; and one of the New Zealand 
boys, who had taken at least one strong drink and smelled of 

another, called me a *'G d Yankee," either because I 

had a lady on each arm, my wife and cousin, or because he was 
provoked at President Wilson's neutrality. One object in going 




108 SAMOA 

ashore is to get a good meai. We walked in a hotel and ordered 
one, but were politely informed they could not serve us because 
we were not English soldiers. However, the proprietor com- 
promised by giving us some soda-pop drinks. What he charged 
entitles him to a front position in military ranks. 

A BELGIAN BENEFIT 

UCKY for us, that night a Belgian war-fund benefit 
was given. We paid three shillings each for a chair in 
a little hall that was stuffed to suffocation. The sol- 
diers were the ushers, and it was interesting to watch 
the natives come in. Some soldiers came in undershirts and pants, 
while the Samoan women appeared in opera hats, society dressed 
hair, lace waists and silk gowns. Diamonds glittered in their 
ears, on their breasts and hands, but their feet and legs were as 
bare as the walls. The military band played classic and popular 
airs, and that was about the only air in the place. My new 
white suit was like a dish towel, but the Samoan who sat in 
front of me, dressed in tuxedo, vest, white shirt, diamond, lava- 
lava and bare feet, was cool and collected. This was a grand 
society affair, and he was making the most of it. Solomon in all 
his glory was not arrayed like any of these. It was the event 
of the season, and martyrdom for us, a relief concert that put 
us in a position to appreciate the suffering Belgians. 

The program was great, in length. A little native sang 
"Tipperary" a long way from the key, and Samoan boys went 
through a military drill in imitation and burlesque of the N. Z. 
soldiers, using sticks for guns and swords. When an officer's 
name was called a barefooted tot would come out and salute. 
Some handsome half-castes, in European dress, put on airs 
and tried to sing classic music, but it was as flat as their voices. 
Love songs were sung under the palms on the stage, and a boy 
and girl acted the lover part to the envious delight of many in 
the audience who wanted to do the same thing, 



SAMOA 



109 




A WAR DANCE 

BIG chief's daughter danced. She had been in battles, 
led the troops on when they were fearful, and had 
been baptized in blood. It was her duty, when the 
tribe went to war, to dance in front of the troops, and, 
like another Joan of Arc, lead them to battle. She pulled off a 
dance on the stage, and most of her clothes, displaying her 
agility and some other things. She wore flowers in her hair, 
and a kind of grass and tapa-cloth skirt that stopped short 
at the knee. Her legs, arms, breasts and stomach were bare 
and glistening with cocoanut oil. There were shell beads around 
her neck and beads of perspiration on her body. Like a drum- 
major she wielded a big sword knife that had a vicious hook at 
the end. Mrs. Dean, the wife of a leading merchant who had 
lived at Apia for thirty years, told me she had seen this same 
girl, during a revolution, march and dance before their store 
at the head of her tribe, while she tossed up an enemy's head, 
caught it on a hooked knife, the blood running down and spat- 
tering her head, shoulders and arms. She was a combination of 
Salome, and Judith who beheaded Holifernes. The reason for 
placing such a fille de regiment at the head of the fighters is that 
where she bravely dares to lead no man dares be cowardly and 
not follow. 



THE SAMOAN SIVA 

*T^ HE siva dance is literally "handed" down, for from 
K first to last they hand you out innumerable gestures. 
The upper part of the body shows all the muscles in 
motion, while the feet and legs beat a slow time. It 
is more formal than frenzied and more studied than spon- 
taneous. The "taupo" is the center of attraction, though the 
well-oiled and bedecked girls on either side of her deserve some 
attention. I wonder if they oil themselves for the dance so 
that it will go off smoothly. The *'taupo" is the village virgin, 
and her duties are more numerous and varied than Rome's 
Vestals. She wears a three-decker and three-masted head dress 
built up of three sticks, a wig, nautilus shell and bright plumage. 
A necklace of bright shells or whale's teeth, ground small, 
smooth and sharp, is around her neck. She starts the song and 



110 SAMOA 

the dance begins. The words have no reference to the positions 
of the dance, but are used first in compliment to her or to de- 
scribe love, hate, peace and war or pronounce a dirge eulogy for 
the dead. There are some sixty distinct dances, ten is their 
usual limit, but I saw the limit in one. After they are tired 
of dancing and sitting the "taupo" rises with a few of her 
assistants and does the "roof-tree" dance that brings down 
the house. The first sitting and singing dance is clean, but 
the second or rising dance, such as I saw at Honolulu and 
Apia, where they hum and clap their hands in a theatrical way, 
closes with some smutty and unsavory suggestions. 

Several native siva-siva dances were given. The men wore 
lava-lavas around their waists, and the garlanded, glistening 
girls more or less. They sat and swayed in their siva-siva 
dance; moved head, hands and arms to right and left; jumped 
up and with grunts, chants and clapping of hands went through 
a wild, gyrating, gymnastic performance that represented work- 
ing, hunting, fishing, fighting, swimming, courting and lov- 
ing. They shook their breasts, gave some lewd positions and 
gestures that raised a roar of applause from the soldiers, but 
didn't hug and lug each other around and weren't half as in- 
decent and disgusting as some cabaret dancers I later saw in 
'Frisco. 

The most laughable sight was a princess who weighed at 
least three hundred pounds. She sang odd, funny, native songs, 
made gestures, tried to be coy and young, and convulsed the 
crowd. The fun was cyclonic, and when she sang ''Good-bye," 
"Tofa ma Feleni, oh, I never will forget you," the audience 
joined in. Oh, I never will forget her or the crowd. If my 
friend J. V. Bryson could ever get a Universal Film movie of 
this program it would benefit the Belgians and Laemmle up in 
the seven figures column. 

LOVING HANDS 

|B FLASHLIGHTED our way through the crowd to the 
boat, while the barefooted aristocrats went to their 
homes and huts, and the brave soldier boys escorted 
the dark-eyed girls to love 's walks and ways. Before I 
came to Samoa I had planned to spend a night with the 






SIVA SIVA DANCERS 



SAMOA 




SAMOAN TAUPO 



SAMOA 111 



natives, but the English martial law said I couldn't, and that 
I must go back to the ship and sleep in my own bed. The 
people are most hospitable, and one of their forms of delightful 
entertainment to the white man is to invite him into their house 
to spend the night, during which time one of the elder dames 
rubs his feet, massages his back, sings to him, fans him, or does 
anything else she thinks necessary for his comfort. The sleeping 
room illustrates the IMoose motto, ' ' One for all and all for one, ' ' 
for boys and girls, men and women lie down side by side and go 
to sleep or wake up whenever they want to. Alas, here was the 
chance of my life, with more than an Arabian Night's enter- 
tainment, and I went to the ship to wake the morrow morn a 
sadder and a wiser man. "Jack" was waiting at the wharf 
and his crew soon rowed us over rolling wave, by reef and 
wreck, till we came to the gang. Tired out after the big day 
we retired. 

HOW THEY WORSHIP 

I ANY sightseers who never go to church at home never 

do much else on Sunday in the islands, because there 

^^^^ isn't much else to do. The Samoans are religious or 

nothing, so we went to their Zion to see their zeal. 

The sun rose hot, and with a few thin clothes and a little 
fruit we were rowed ashore. "We followed a band of faithful 
natives to the Cathedral where the worshippers sat or knelt on 
mats inside, and worrying mothers sat outside thinking more of 
their babies than their beads, and of cleanly comfort than Chris- 
tian character. Flies buzzed their responses, and one rather 
pretty girl divided her time between looking at my kodak 
and arranging the beads and flowers on her sister. 

At the Wesleyan church the fond pastor's flock was small, 
but he exhorted them faithfully. They were loud in Scripture 
response and made up for number by noise. 

The London Mission was full of folks and fervor. Men sat 
on one side and women on the other, like sheep and goats, while 
we stood in the corner in a class by ourselves. The Bible 
lesson was worse than Greek or Hebrew to me, but the music 
was tender and thunderous like the surf. A woman would pitch 
the tune, another catch it, others bawl it home over first bass 





112 SAMOA 

and second tenor until it came to a short stop. Time and tune, 
the loud crescendo and soft diminuendo, melody and harmony 
engulfed me in its maelstrom. My eyes filled with tears, my 
heart pumped and throat burst. It shamed and silenced any 
church music I had ever listened to. 

Passing a yard of shade trees I heard music like the ''Vienna 
"Woods." In the background stood a building where a close- 
shaven German priest was teaching some Samoan boys how to 
sing. He played the organ with one hand and beat time with 
the other, and at times looked as if he wished his two hands 
were free to beat the boys. 

OPEN HOUSE 

I OUR services before nine o'clock was a religious dissi- 
pation, and for fear too much religious work would 
make ''Jack" or us dull, we started out to play. I 
wanted to see the natives in their natural state at 
home, and not just "got up good" in Sunday dress and be- 
havior a,t church. Around one hut the wall-mats were all rolled 
up like curtains and gave us a picture of old people resting, 
young men reading religious books, some boys pounding kava 
and others bringing in hot taro and yams wrapped in pandanus 
leaves for the early Sunday dinner. The Samoans divide the 
honor of rat-eating with the Chinese. A native will catch a 
rat, kill and skin it, carefully wrap it in leaves, bury it over 
night and dig it up and fry it for breakfast food. 

The Samoans keep "open house" literally and figuratively. 
The hut is open on all sides, and the mat curtains are seldom 
let down except in stormy weather. You may come in any 
hour of the day or night and rest, eat and take away as much 
as you wish. It looks like a beehive, and the native villages at 
Apia could rightly be called "Apiaries." These hives have a 
"queen," "drones" and "workers" who "wax" fat and eat 
the sweets and have a "Honey, how are you time?" without 
the "hives." The roof of the house is thatched like its owner's 
head. With its three center posts and its many shorter posts 
at the eaves it resembles a haystack turned into a merry-go- 
round. For sidings or doors they have screens of woven palm 
leaves which are fastened by cocoanut fibre and may be raised 




SAMOA 113 

or lowered. All the rooms are one big room for all. The floor 
is made of broken coral and covered with mats. 

The ceiling is made from the wood of the bread-fruit tree, 
arched and bound with a cocoanut string instead of nails. 
Shelved overhead you will find the family wealth of mats, tapa 
cloth and bottles of cocoanut oil. The menu is baked or boiled 
taro, roasted fish, pig or chicken, and served without pepper, 
salt or dishes. Instead of an individual finger bowl or napkin 
they pass around a big wash basin or towel. 

MATS 

ATS — what matters? Much. I brought one home and 
it is matchless, a sort of magic carpet. It is unneces- 
p^^^l sary to stand or sit on. I only have to look at it to be 
'^' carried away across the South Seas to see once more 
what I saw and cannot forget. Natives sit and sleep on the 
mats, which may account for their matted hair. They are 
made of pandanus fibre or cocoanut leaves. The price varies, 
from shillings to pounds, as they are coarse or fine. Whether the 
bridegroom is a wrestler or not you may give him a mat — as 
for the bride, you may give her a mat that will serve for her, 
wedding dress or funeral shroud. Mats are money. A Samoan 's 
wealth is not houses or lands. He doesn't show you books, 
pictures, piano or auto, but mats. Mats are not only money 
and clothes but chairs and beds, for the native sleeps on a 
mat and not a mattress. Instead of bed linen laundry there is 
a mat cleaning season, and it is always open. Before and after 
taking your rest you arm yourself with a brush or broom and 
sweep off the bugs, spiders and centipedes. A mat is valued 
not by its size, weight or color, but by the time and energy 
put into it and the personal history connected with it. Not only 
is it security for any money the family may have borrowed, 
but it is as sacred as a Moslem prayer-rug. Some mats are 
praised in poetry and prose and others are saluted with respect 
or reverently touched with hand or lifted to the lips. 



114 SAMOA 

TATTOOING 

AMOANS love bright colors. They edge their fine 
mats with red feathers of the parakeet. The geo- 
metrical figures of Euclid, and not the curve and 
soft line of their home scenes, is the rule in decorations. 
They use the knife better than the brush, as is seen in their 
carvings of household ware, beams of houses, canoes, clubs, combs 
and fans. This is some of their handicraft, but their handiest 
''craft" is the canoe which led Bougainville, the discoverer of the 
islands, to call them the Navigator's Islands. They paint tapa. 
The brush used is not shredded wheat but a shredded pan- 
danus nut. The paint is the burned nut of the candlenut tree, 
and the designs are crude and conventional. The canvas for their 
finest art is not a piece of tapa, but their own skin from waist 
to knee, and decorated in colors that will not wash off. There 
is method in this madness, for every outline has a design and 
every trace tells a story. You may be old enough to be called 
a man, but if you are not brave enough to stand the tattoo you 
are called a baby and are not entitled to much consideration 
at home or in Samoan society. This is the modus operandi. 
The boy is stripped and laid upon a mat and the artist takes an 
instrument that is a cross between a garden rake and safety 
razor, having from two to twenty teeth. He dips it into the 
pigment, the assistant stretches the skin, and the artist hits the 
instrument with a stick and hammers it in. It takes time as well 
as money, for often the decoration requires two weeks, and 
during that time the patient is mighty sore and his patience is 
severely tried. His sweetheart, who is to share her sorrows and 
his joys later, sits by his side, wipes away the sweat from his 
brow and the blood from his back, and sings to him. The 
process is painful, but a good preparation for what a married 
man may expect to suffer. "When her tattoo time comes the deco- 
rations will be stars and bracelets and her own and children's 
names on her arm. 

TOFA APIA 

I EAR another house a pretty girl, who had put on her 
best things for church, was taking them off piece by 
piece as she crossed the yard, and was nearly undressed 
by the time she entered the hut. Here she hung up 
some pieces, folded the rest, gave us an innocent look, and began 




SAMOA 115 

to set the table on the floor. She invited us to sit down and eat, 
but we weren't very hungry, for we heard the steamer's ''first 
whistle," the signal to meet "Jack" at the wharf. I soon 
found him with my muddy suit of the day before all white be- 
hind and everywhere else. 

We have steam laundries to do our work, here the steamy 
weather piles up the laundry and the natives do their own 
work. They go down to the stream, throw the dirty clothes oti 
a rock and pound them with a flat stone. This is the origin 
of the "mangling" process which is so destructively used on 
our white linen. If the politicians here do any wholesale wash- 
ing they might have the chain gang prisoners break rocks on 
their clothes. 

Half of our party was strayed or stolen. After waiting 
fifteen minutes "L" and I pulled out without them, knowing 
that Merlon would get another boat up the bay and cut across. 
The soldiers did not search us at the wharf to see if we were 
taking more than twenty-five dollars back to the ship. They 
knew "three-fingered Jack" had been our guide, and after he 
had held us up there wouldn't be anything worth shaking down, 
The rest of our party met us at the gang, all went on deck, the 
anchor was raised and we began to move. Waving a friendly 
greeting to some of the natives who had rowed out to see the 
last of us, we said farewell. Then the mist and rain came over 
the mountain Eobert Louis Stevenson loved so well, dimmer 
grew the Apian shore and fainter the fond "tofa," till its sweet 
farewell was lost in the hiss of steam and the splash of the sea. 

A SHORT HISTORY LESSON 

HE Samoan islands were discovered by Bougainville 
in 1768. There are 44 of them with a population 
of nearly 40,000, including 500 whites. They never 
need starve, for there are some 20 varieties of bread- 
fruit and 16 kinds of cocoanuts. The Samoan language is said 
to be the oldest of the Polynesian tongues. It is liquid 
and soft as their eyes and is called the "Italian of the 
Pacific." The Samoans are well-formed and informed. Al- 
though their ^land hills and mountains are not so high as 
some of the others in the South Seas, their social, mental and 




116 SAMOA 



moral position is very high among the islanders. Religiously 
they worship the Trinity of the Protestant, Roman Catholic and 
Mormon faiths while retaining some of the superstitions of their 
long ago idolatry. They were once polytheists, and it is said 
they never offered human sacrifices. When they buried their 
dead they believed their spirits traveled to the future world 
by way of the water route pool at the west end of Savaii. 

Soon after Samoa was discovered the traders became jealous 
and civil war among the natives upset their prosperity. The 
Germans supported Tamosese, the United States and England 
upheld Malietoa. When these chiefs disagreed among them- 
selves the different nations agreed to settle it, and they did. 
In 1900 Great Britain surrendered her Samoan rights over 
Savaii and Upolu in favor of Germany and ceded Tutuila and 
other islands to U. S. This is where your Uncle Sam put 
the Sam in Samoa. 

Samoa was nothing but a dot on the map until Stevenson, 
war and hurricanes magnified it in the eyes of the world. The 
story of Samoa tells of petty kings whose far-reaching influence 
and fame were limited to their pictures on postage stamps, and 
of queens who, in addition to washing themselves, their babies 
and clothing, took in washing for extra pin money. 

PRESENT PASTIMES 



"^^ 



HEY do light work, make and sell fans and then take 
a nap when and v/here they can. Towards evening 
they make a call, mats are spread out and the women 
sit down and gossip and smoke cigarets. At night 
a little fire is kindled, they have a kind of family worship, 
sit down to the main meal, play some games, lie down on 
their bamboo pillows, cover themselves with mosquito nets 
and go to sleep. They are light sleepers, for the mistress of 
the mianse lights a lamp and turns the wick down low. White 
people who are afraid of thieves keep a light burning all night. 
Samoans keep it to drive away the evil spirits. 

The Samoans love to talk as much as the colored people in 
the South, and they have their he as well as she tauquas. The 
leading speaker is called "tulafele," and is as noisy a wind- 
jammer as a state senator. He is full of high-sounding words 



SAMOA 117 



and phrases and uses a ' ' f ue ' ' fly-flap not only to drive away 
the winged nuisance but to give emphasis to his winged words. 
The poor old men who are compelled to listen to him improve 
their time by braiding sinnet rope from the cocoanut fibre, 
doubtless wishing they could put it round his neck and choke 
him off. 

The Samoans are amphibious and swim as well in the sea 
as they can walk on land. They surf-ride in canoes and not 
on boards as the Hawaiians do. They are good fishers and 
fish with nets and shell-hooks where the water is deep and 
spear fish at night. 

This little island of ITpolu has big game, and if you love 
hunting you can find rhinoceros beetles that destroy the cocoa- 
nut trees; spiders big as a saucer, that weave a web strong 
enough to hang you ; foot-long centipedes, who walk around the 
house as if they owned it; and a blue lizard that has a record 
long-jump of twenty feet. Then there is elephantiasis, which is 
not a beast but a beastly disease, and is caused by a mosquito 
bite that makes a man's arms and legs swell like the trunk and 
legs of an elephant. 

CHARACTER AND CHARACTERISTICS 

HE hot moist climate has a destructive influence on 

the Ten Commandments. What we hesitate to do, or 

are ashamed of when we have done it, they commit 

openly and with little concern. 

These islands were called the ''Hell of the Pacific" for their 

cruelty and vice. While their morals are improved, the phrase 

might still be applied to the torridity of the climate. 

The natives have their Jonah days. It is bad luck to see 
a shooting star, to spit in the sea, to meet a hunchback, to catch 
a devil fish, to see a rat swim in the water, or to cough. It is 
good luck to meet a big fat spider, an albino with white skin, 
flaxen hair and pink eyes; and instead of spitting on their fish 
hooks they rub cocoanut oil on the hooks and lines, and conse- 
crate their canoes and paddles with strangs rites. Major Ken- 
dall of New Zealand told me he had seen Samoan mothers 
take an hibiscus blossom and rub it over the sore, inflamed or 
injured eyes of their children to make them well. This ignorant 
custom often results in blindness. 




118 SAMOA 



When it comes to religion the Samoan knows the Bible by 
heart and can quote as many texts as the white brother who 
brought it to him. Often they are quite as inconsistent as 
white believers who are long on creed and short on conduct. The 
Samoans always had a high opinion of themselves, and from 
their Pantheon they used to select a special god for an island, 
town and family, and often shared their food to please him. 

The human family here has a peculiar meaning and is widely 
embracing. The people carry out the command to "love one 
another," and ''covet earnestly the best gifts." A man might 
be living with his mother and his wife, yet if he thought he 
wanted an additional mother all four would agree to live to- 
gether. This custom of adoption is lost in cloudy tradition. 
Women adopt another mother's children as soon as born, or 
when grown up, and keep them as if they were their own. A 
mother of twenty-five may have an adopted son of fifty. Often 
the children live nearby and regard the adopted parents as 
real as their own father and mother, 

Samoa is the land of sunshine and song. There is music in 
sea and sky as well as spheres. Airs are written everywhere, 
and women as well as men have a ''voice" in family affairs. 
The natives sing when they work or when they play, when 
they go on errands or visits, when they paddle their canoes or 
go to church Sunday. The winds whistle so they don't have 
to. Their drums are hollow logs, their drumsticks are clubs, 
the blow gives a sharp tone and is the signal call for work, 
church or curfew, but the war-drum beats no longer. Their 
music is more for mass volume than single voice. Heathen-like, 
they have a scale law unto themselves. Their musical intervals 
distract a foreigner, and an occasional diatonic scale would be 
a tonic to the listener. Their minor chords are melancholy and 
their accent is generally placed on the last syllable of recorded 
time. 



CRATER CRADLES 

HE "Atua" skirted the shores of Savaii, an island of 
the Samoan group and the legendary cradle of the 
Polynesian race. This cradle must have been vio- 
lently rocked when a volcano broke loose here in 1905 
and kept it up for six years. The lava flowed eight miles across 



T 




SAMOA 119 



the island and poured over the cliff into the sea. The crater 
is quiet now like the natives. The sight must have been sublime 
when the lava howled and hissed hot into the sea, a waterfall 
of fire. We passed close to the little island of Apolima, an 
extinct volcano cone. With my glass I looked through the gap 
in its side where the sea entered and put out its old enemy, the 
fire. Apolima means "hollow of the hand," and in it are held 
palms, huts and people. It is almost impossible to get in or 
out because the breakers sweep furiously against the reefs and 
crags of the shore. What a delightful and romantic place for 
a hermit with no society of bores or bored ! 

SUVA SOUVENIRS 

HE skipper skipped a day and when we woke up next 
morning it was Tuesday, and there had been no blue 
Monday. Time is out of joint here and one may cross 
and reeross some lines and have no time at all. The 
sailors make up for lost time when they are on shore by having 
what they call a good time with wine, women and song. 

After a stop at Niuafoou and Levuka, which I have described 
in previous chapters, we arrived outside Suva harbor at 10 
P. M. If it had been clear we could have entered in ten min- 
utes, but the fog kept us circling around till 4 A. M., though 
the sky was clear with its moon and stars above us. Our cap- 
tain was careful. He told us not to worry, that the ''Atua" 
had survived several wrecks and sinkings off Fiji, so that if 
we did sink or swim, live or die, he personally intended to 
make the harbor. If the captain of the H. M. S. *' Pinafore" 
received three cheers and one more, Wallis of the ''Atua" 
deserved a dozen. He had been out of Suva less than two 
weeks and had spent the time dodging reefs, fogs, hurricanes 
and other monsters of the deep, including the inquisitive pas- 
sengers who are always asking him how many miles it is to 
somewhere and if they would ever get there, and when. 

We were awakened by the noise of the winches and wenches. 
The pink sunrise and the rain made a pretty water color. 
We heard the early calls and cries of the Fiji boatmen who 
were bringing in their lighters heavy with bananas. There 
seemed to be enough to fill every push cart in the United States 
and the stomach of every little boy in the world. Our hold 



120 SAMOA 



was ballasted with bananas till it could hold no more. The 
"Atna" had previously left the wood crates and now the fruit 
was boxed to ship. It is a proverb that "Civilization does not 
flourish where the banana grows." I make an exception of 
some of my Suva friends here whom I was anxious to see be- 
cause they had promised me some Suvanirs; Collins a coeoanut 
kava cup, Wall a cannibal fork, Powell some rubber sheets to 
keep me dry, and Johnson an iced drink. 

It was hot when we were here before and hotter now. The 
rain, which had fallen for two weeks while we were gone, rose 
up in clouds of hot steam. "We made a final chase over town 
to market, store, bank, hotel, and came back to the ship. A 
Fijian tried to sell me a big turtle which put out his head and 
flippers as if to fly to my arms, but my party was already large 
enough, and my purse, like Balzac's Magic Skin, was growing 
smaller with every indulgence. I sadly said, "No turtle." 

"American Consul" Johnson and "My "Word" Foy stuck 
to the last, and they were both such good company I wished 
they had been left and compelled to go with us. The best of 
friends must part and so we separated. It was high noon, and 
to keep from feeling sad and bad on leaving my Fijian friends 
I played the Funeral March. One finds many things in travel, 
but the best thing is a friend and worth going to Fiji or the 
ends of the world to discover. 

PALM SUNDAY AT SEA 

I HE day was fine, clear and cool. It was lovely just to 
be alive with sun, sea and sky, to eat, sleep, read, chat, 
play the piano and think of Holy Week because the 
next day was Palm Sunday. The day came with not 
a palm in sight except a palm-leaf fan on the table, and yet for 
two weeks we had walked by ten thousand palms and felt a 
rapturous devotion under their beauty. The last two Sundays 
were Palm Sundays. This day we felt thankful for so many 
past mercies and "Hosannah" was in our hearts. We, too, 
would cast palm branches, with the millions on shore, to Him 
who for centuries had marched across sea and land. Xerxes, 
Pompey and Caesar were followed by crime, cruelty, fire, fam- 
ine, wreck, ravage, poverty and pestilence ; the Nazarene by the 




SAMOA 121 



poor and sick He had helped and healed. I believe the prophecy 
of that first Palm Sunday is being realized. Art, commerce, 
religion, philanthropy, wealth and civilization are preparing 
Christ's way in His world-wide triumphal march. "When the 
captain asked if I would preach I said yes, and did, showing the 
Father's love for his children in the life, death and resurrec- 
tion of His Son, who says, "Love one another; as I have loved 
you." 

Love is the heart of Grod, atmosphere of heaven and nature 
of Christ. 

Love is king ruling heaven and earth, the only valuable and 
lasting thing in time and eternity. 

"Who, what, when and why we love makes or mars and proves 
whether we are good or bad. 

The high cost of loving is too often the price of low living — 
of what men pay to gain in the loss of their body, mind and soul. 

Physical cost — of boys and girls, men and women who in- 
dulge in pleasures unsanctioned by love and law paying the 
penalty of physical disease and imbecility, hardened conscience, 
remorse, moral corruption and spiritual stain. 

Sentimental cost — of a Samson and Delilah, David and 
Bathsheba, Heloise and Abelard, who paid the divine attributes 
of their soul for the throb of a muscle and the thrill of a nerve. 

Intellectual cost — of poet, philosopher, painter, musician, 
inventor and scientist, who pay for success and fame with 
study, isolation, hunger, misunderstanding, privation and life 
blood. 

Patriotic cost — of statesman and soldier who leave fam- 
ily and possession to climb the Calvary of death that men's 
bodies may be free from chains, their minds unshackled from 
ignorance, their hearts permitted to read an open Bible, and 
their souls to serve God or Satan, be saved or damned, according 
to their own free will and dictate of conscience. 

Filial cost — of the brother who toils, lives simply, saves 
and sacrifices for his sister's education; of the daughter who 
remains single, though her heart yearns for love, that she may 
help an aged father or mother in their declining years. 



122 SAMOA 

Parental cost — of the father, who from early morning to late 
night works with hand, head and heart to support the wife who 
gave her body and soul to his keeping at the marriage altar; 
of the mother whose whole life is a sacrifice of blood, tears, sweat 
and prayers for husband and children. 

Divine cost — of humanity's salvation which was paid for 
in the humble incarnation, desolate temptation, infamous trial 
and agonizing crucifixion of God's well-beloved Son. 




123 



124 NEW ZEALAND 



ALL ABOUT AUCKLAND 



THE "Atua" entered the Hauraki gulf, slipped by Ran- 
gitoto mountain, with its volcano cone, and steamed 
into Waitemata harbor to Auckland. In spite of the 
hard and ugly names the Maori natives called these 
places, they are very beautiful. 

Docked at last, we bade good-bye to the good ship and offi- 
cers, our floating hotel and servants, and started for the ''Wa- 
verly," a novel named hotel. About to take mine ease in mine 
inn, I learned that the Easter holidays began at three o'clock, 
and the banks would be closed for ten days till after the races. 
I needed money, and plenty of it, for if I failed to get my Cook 
draft at once my goose would be cooked. 

I hurried and crowded in just before the bank closed, and 
was told point-blank that although I had given good gold for 
my American express checks to Cook in San Francisco, and 
had received a draft on the bank of New Zealand for English 
gold, the government would pay out no gold. It was war-time 
and I must take pounds of their paper or nothing at all. I 
took it, although I knew if any of the ''paper" was left over 
when I reached Australia it would be discounted. Australian 
and New Zealand banks think very little of each other's daily 
news or bank paper. Like the ancient Jews and Samaritans they 
have as little dealing with each other as possible. Fifteen min- 
utes later and I would have gone begging, and been in an excel- 
lent mood to preach a new sermon, on the bank steps, from the 
text, ' ' The door was shut. ' ' Here was another argument against 
the incestuous union of church and state that Easter or any 
other church day should close business and bank doors. Henry 
VIII didn't go quite far enough in his divorce ideas of church 
and state, though he did go the limit and more when it came to 
women and wives. 

"We rode over town in a double-decker car, having acquired 
the ship habit of sitting on deck. Auckland has over 100,000 
souls who look, dress, act, think, work, eat, drink and live 
much alike. The houses, too, are built on one pattern, and are 
as homely as many of the owners. There is no place like their 
homes of small wooden boxes with an iron lid on them. As if 
ashamed of human nature's journeyman carpenter work, that 



NEW ZEALAND 125 



had traveled so far from art ideals, Nature has tried to cover 
up the angles with vines and roses. Viewed as a trellis the 
house frames are very satisfactory. 

That night I asked the hotel clerkess if there was a vaude- 
ville show in town. She was tall and pretty, but before answer- 
ing, rose to full height, looked at me in an injured innocence 
kind of way, and said, ' ' My word ! you are in New Zealand. 
Auckland is a respectable city — there is a play at the Queen's 
opera house. ' ' I begged her ' ' pawdon, ' ' thanked her, and went 
up hill to the op'ry. It looked very ordinary outside. I put 
down twelve shillings for my party and was given six metal 
cart wheels which the ticket taker took at the door and rolled 
into a tin box. The so-called "opera" was a good first-class 
second-class vaudeville show, such as you can get home for half 
the price. 

There was little applause, but the dreary silence was broken 
every few minutes by the thump and dump of the big cart 
wheel tickets. It was the usual song, dance, juggling variety 
bill. The bill that made the hit was the "Kaiser Bill," for he 
was often referred to, and in a way that made all good English 
soldiers and sailors shout. 

After the performance we went in a dive. I am sure it 
was, because the word "dive" was written in big, bold letters 
over the door. I knew there were dives but didn't know they 
labeled them that way. "We took a chance, and entering found 
it was only a restaurant. In the United States it is often re- 
versed, what is advertised as a restaurant is frequently a dive. 

IN THE BUSH 

ALL aboard for a hot time at Rotorua. The hot time 
did not refer to a hot box for it took eight hours to 
run 170 miles. The word "hot" refers to Eotorua, the 
thermal district of New Zealand. The government 
runs the railroad, I was told, but this is a mistake ; it doesn 't 
run, it just crawls about twenty miles an hour. This is a good 
thing for the tourist, as it enables him to deliberately see a few 
things of interest along the way. Moreover, if the engineer 
hurried, the train might run off the island into the sea and that 
would end the tourist's observations. 



126 NEW ZEALAND 

Sitting snug in our ear seats, "reserved" for a price, we 
left Auckland and passed by little houses, pretty pastures, fat 
sheep, cattle and horses, farms, hills, woods and forests. The 
cars on the tracks were filled with sheep, and in the wayside 
fields there were rabbits by twos and twenties whose tracks 
crossed ours. Much room is filled with mushrooms. It is said 
that in the mushroom season the fast mail stops ten minutes to 
allow its crew and passengers to get out with their tin pails and 
gather enough vegetable diet to last a week. 

My boyish idea of a "bush" was something on which cur- 
rants and berries grew and I was asked to hustle and pick them 
on the farm. The ' ' bush ' ' in New Zealand would be called a tree- 
clad hill in New England. Our train was a bushwhacker and 
we shot through dead and living forests like Southern guerrillas. 

This was a vegetable kingdom. The dense undergrowths were 
the subjects, the stately kauri the king, the tree-ferns the cour- 
tiers, and the hangers-on the trailing supple-jack and "grasp- 
ing lawyer." The supple-jack looks like a black snake, and is a 
parasite that grows on the root and trunk of a tree. It will trip 
you up beneath and hang you from above. The ' ' bush ' ' lawyer 
is a trailing creeper, a hanger that lies in your path, grabs you 
with its many curved hooks, and illustrates the proverb of 
"Falling into the clutches of the law." One large fern is 
called "Prince of Wales Feather." It grows large, and looks 
like a green-dyed ostrich plume. 

A botanist sees tongues in trees that tell strange stories; 
a commercial eye finds wagon tongues, wharf piles and railroad 
ties in the "puriri" and "totara"; children who celebrate 
Christmas in summer see the bright blossomed tree "pohu- 
tukwa" on which they hang their stockings; a preacher-poet 
would apply the words * ' forest primeval ' ' to the ' ' karaka, ' ' and 
everyone would praise the noble kauri which grows a hundred 
and fifty feet high, is twenty feet in diameter, and in death 
shows beautiful remains of "gum," dug up and sold, not for 
chewing but varnish. Careful mamas point out of the window 
and tell their daughters of the wicked "rota" that twines its 
tendrils around the beautiful kauri until the big tree is nothing 
but a dead trellis. 

Our train ploughed through acres of charred timber that 
looked like a forest of telegraph poles. The bush that Moses 



NEW ZEALAND 127 

beheld was unconsumed, those we looked at were burned and 
destroyed. Often we paused at little towns with big unpro- 
nouncable names that meant much to the Maoris who came down 
to see the train and tourists. 

ROTORUA 



WE FINALLY reached Rotorua and made haste to jump 
in an auto bus marked "Geyser Hotel." Maoris met 
us at the station in native dress. The women's chins 
were tattooed with blue marks that looked as if they 
had eaten huckleberry pie and forgotten to wipe their mouths. 
Some one, not my wife, hopped on the auto bus and sat by my 
side. I glanced up and found an intelligent, good-looking 
Maori girl who said in good English and pleasant tone that she 
was a guide, had good references, and would come around in 
the morning to the hotel and show us the sights. 

The bus buzzed two miles down a long avenue, by stores, 
houses, parks and gardens, till it stopped at a native settlement 
called Whakarewarewa. We were to sleep here if one could 
in a place with such a name. They called it "Wocker" for 
short, and the big proprietor of the Geyser Hotel guaranteed 
us some good schnapps and naps. There were geysers, pools, hot, 
oily spout baths, a boiling river and other things that we had 
come to see, and after a good dinner we decided to go back to 
town and see the natives in an entertainment at the opera house. 
Everyone wanted to see the geysers play, but they were tired 
and asleep, so we saw the natives play, and play they do, for 
they are children and work is play. 

MERRY MAORIS 



THERE was no printed program, but their pastor, Rev. 
Bennett, a native who had done much for their mental 
and moral improvement, made the announcement of 
the songs and dances. After the native band played, 
Maori boys and girls sang English and native songs. Some of 
them danced the "haka," an old Maori dance in which they 
stretched their faces in ugly positions, stuck out their tongues, 
rolled their eyes and made St. Vitus gestures. The men were 




128 NEW ZEALAND 

dressed in trunks, looked cross-eyed, made faces that resembled 
their crazy carvings, jumped, gyrated, gesticulated, giggled, and 
let out a string of horrible maniacal howls. Literally the dance 
was a howl and a scream. Children played Maori games of ball 
and top, boys engaged in wrestling bouts, and there were his- 
toric tableaux. Some of the girls gave a ''poi" dance. It 
was not the Hawaiian poi to eat, but a tasty something in which 
the girls sat and reclined in graceful "poise," with motions of 
planting, rowing and weaving. 

IN HOT WATER 

OTOEUA is New Zealand's Carlsbad or worse — ^Na- 
ture's sanatorium for the lame, halt and blind, the 
drunkard and debauchee who come to have their disease 
and deviltry boiled, baked and sluiced out of them. It 
is the tourist spot of New Zealand, and the government has 
spent much money and printer's ink in booming it. Traveling 
parties come up week ends and stay over Sunday and take a bath, 
or one a year at Easter. The Government Bath House is just off 
the main road and situated in a big park of trees, flowers and 
geysers. It was full moon and the Easter visitors were out in 
full to hear the Auckland military band give a splendid con- 
cert. The crowd stood and listened or promenaded, while 
strangers flirted and lovers courted. After being lifted up by 
these waves of harmony I drifted over to the main building 
and stood in line for a ticket. "What bath, sir?" "None," I 
replied. "I just want to see what you have here, who want it, 
and how it is used." Visiting the male side, because a female 
angel had warned me from the other, I saw men in the plunge, 
and others who were headed for private steaming, scouring and 
massaging. 

Here like is cured by like as you like it. The "Priest's Bath" 
is a sulphur bath to sweat Satan out of him; "Eachael's," an 
alkali salt bath to preserve her memory; the "Postmaster's" 
stimulates circulation; the "Blue bath" is in the open air for 
dyspeptics, and the "Duchess' bath" is luxurious and served 
hot. The "mineral" baths should be good for the bankers and 
the "mud" baths for politicians. There were patients taking 
baths for gout, rheumatism, lumbago, neuritis, hysteria, liver 
and kidney complaint. There seemed to be baths for everything 




DANCING THE "HAKA" 



NEW ZEALAND 




A MAORI MANSION 



ROTORUA, N. Z. 




NEW ZEALAND 129 



and body except pure water baths for the dirty hall statues ; an 
immunity bath for the politicians; a soap bath for the hobo; a 
nicotine and bitter bath for the smoker and drinker, and a per- 
fume bath for the traveler. 

SOLD AGAIN 

[HE town is full of hotels, curio shops and movies. It 
lives off the tourist and does its best to prolong his 
life and stay. The shops are crowded with carved 
wood handiwork, photos, curios, utensils of peace and 
war, green stone souvenirs, jewelry, bracelets, rings, charms and 
"Tikis." Genuine curios are scarce and expensive, and I won- 
dered why the dealers, so anxious for our money, had no cheap 
fake souvenirs. 

If you want to see the geysers and volcanoes in action, or 
find the ''Lost Terraces" advertised by the tourist bureaus, 
you will find them in the photo shops and nowhere else. Many 
a man who has tramped and driven for three days to see things, 
and has little to show for the time and money expended, may 
stop here on his way to the train and see what the guide could 
not show him. Then he can study them and receive inspiration 
for a talk or lecture. 

A BURIED VILLAGE 

SHALL have to "boil down" a lot of hot stuff here, 
though heat naturally expands. Tarawera is a vol- 
cano. In 1886 it had a bad temper and threw mud 
around like some editors, blighting and destroying 
everything in its range. One morning we started early to see 
it. We had a four horse tallyho and a driver who cracked 
his whip as we passed old earthquake cracks. The only ex- 
citing adventure in the Tikitapu bush was by the Blue Lake, 
where we were commanded to halt. Before we knew it we were 
shot by a photographer. The Blue Lake had always had the 
blues till in 1886 an avalanche of stone and dust turned it gray. 
The color effect was different in Rotokakahi, for it turned this 
lake water green. More recent chasms in the surroundings 
showed us the depth of the volcano's mud-slinging depravity. 




130 NEW ZEALAND 

At the ruins of the "Wairoa village a guide appeared with 
his tale of woe. He told how the hotel boarders were turned 
out into the storm of mud and ashes, how native Maoris were 
buried alive in their "whares" and left by fleeing relatives 
until days later. As in Pompeii bodies were found preserved in 
ashes of people carrying their money and jewels, so here they 
found a Maori woman holding her daughter on her lap and 
clasping a Bible to her bosom. I saw several small wood houses 
or whares that looked like overturned sheds at Hallowe'en. The 
guide waxed eloquent as if these volcano ruins were those of 
Eome, Greece, Egypt and Babylon. I looked and listened pa- 
tiently and said "Yes" to all he said, but it was hardly worth 
an 8,000 mile trip to see. Of course, it was a very sudden and 
sad affair, and I fear the tourist bureau will have difficulty in 
preserving the wreck and ruin of posts, boards, old stoves and 
iron bedsteads. 

Poor people ! "Dust thou art and to dust thou shalt return" 
was signally true of them. But Nature sympathizes and covered 
up the scars of this burned and barren bush with fern and 
shrub to keep their graves green, while the poplar, gum and 
acacia trees keep sentinel watch. The traveler who has been 
to Egypt and Italy will be disappointed here if he thinks his 
guide can furnish him all kinds of stone and bronze souvenirs. 
It is surprising that New Zealand, so enterprising in many 
ways, does not run a fake factory to grind out souvenirs for 
greenhorn tourists. Any skull or leg bone would be much more 
valuable now than when its native possessor was alive. 

FIREWATER 

EAVING the ruins we walked down a steep incline to 
the shores of Lake Tarawera. The girl guide of the 
Geyser Hotel had told me she was married and that her 
husband was the government guide I would meet here. 
I did, and we boarded his launch and steamed across the lake. 
The water was fresh, the sun hot, and beyond the yellow, ragged 
hills I saw the volcano that had given the country a mud-bath. 
Warbriek was our guide and he was well named. He was a 
"brick," and as a young man had stood 'mid this "war of 
elements" and crush of matter. He gave us a vivid word de- 
scription of what he saw and how fearful he felt. We left the 




W^' 



«i€s^' 











.V'^* ...(^^ 


f 


\ 



TARAWERA VOLCANO, AND LAKE 



NEW ZEALAND 






•■^«r;,; 



m 



i^BP 



■UtaiM. 




A GEYSER BLOWOUT ROTORUA, N. Z. 



NEW ZEALAND 131 

launch and climbed a lava staircase and ridge, lugging the lunch 
baskets brought from the hotel. We looked down on Eotoma- 
hana, a lake of poison blue color, and with no suicidal 
intent, though tired to death, descended to a launch. As we 
pulled out the tame ducks quacked "good-bye" and scores of 
gulls, whose white color became heavenly blue from the lake's 
reflection, followed in the wake of our boat as we threw them 
crumbs. This bread cast on the waters will return in bird form 
after many days. One part of this lake is an immense caldron 
of boiling water, and in it some poor venturesome fish had been 
cooked. They were floating on top and the gulls swooped down 
on them, and were thus able to make a sardine sandwich with 
the bread crusts we had given them. When we started the 
water was cool, here it was boiling hot. What a bad place to 
rock a boat! Even though a man had an asbestos bathing suit 
he would soon be parboiled before he could get ashore. The 
shores ste.amed, the cliffs smoked and sulphur smelled, and I 
thought it would be an ideal spot for a Shrine initiation, warmer 
than the proverbial "hot sands." We didn't linger long for 
the bottom of our boat and feet were getting hot as we steamed 
through the water. 

The "Pink and White Terraces" here are very beautiful 
in the photo album. That is about the only place to see them, 
for they were buried in the eruptive mud in 1886. It is really 
too bad. Next to the blue and white color of the lake it was 
the main attraction. I saw so many pictures of the terraces, 
and read so many beautiful descriptions in the folders, that I 
expected to see them. They were all in big color and type, 
the sad sentence that they were dead and buried being printed 
in almost invisible type. 

TOO BAD 

|E LEFT our boat and guide for good and entered an- 
other valley. It might have been Bunyan's "Valley 
of the Shadow of Death." Red hot rivers rolled by 
us, sulphur holes sent up an unholy stench, and steam 
vents blew with pressure enough to run all the world's laun- 
dries. Walking, winding and wondering what next, foot-sore 
and eye-sore, we climbed another tierce hill. Out of breath I 




132 NEW ZEALAND 



threw myself down, filled with thoughts that proved this was no 
Delectable mountain to the pilgrim. I had offended my loyal 
guide Number 2 by saying I did not expect much but fatigue 
from the long walk we had to make, now it was time for me 
to be offended. Where was the far-famed Waimangu geyser 
that sputtered and spouted with an eloquence that shook and 
drowned his hearers ? Nowhere. My guide was the only spouter. 
He stood like Satan of old and told tempting things of the 
geyser, spoke logically and geologically, but I told him to get 
behind me and started down to the bottom of the hill where 
there were puddles and pools of hot water. He followed, found 
a shovel and dug up some oxidized pumice stone from the pools. 
They looked like black opals or diamonds. Then he led us to 
a blow hole, lit some grass and threw it in, and the steam 
and smoke were converted into heavy clouds that came at 
regular intervals, with a rush and roar that gave color to the 
theory that this vent-hole was a kind of Devil's Chimney that 
extended all the way from Tonga. He said this suggested the 
Good Book's bad place. I answered, *'Yes," and if anyone 
asked me to come and climb here again I would tell him to go 
there. 

Again he pointed to the hole where the geyser had gone off 
and not returned for nine years. I looked and saw nothing but 
disappointment. Like a spoiled child it wouldn't show off, yet 
a month later it flew and blew its coop and confined quarters, 
shot up water five hundred feet and threw stones and lava 
around to show how vigorous it could be after so long a rest. 
Another climb that seemed as long and difficult as Mt. Blanc, 
and we were on top and resting in the accommodation house. 
The guide's wife furnished tea and wafers at so much per, and 
with a ''Farewell, I never expect or want to come here again," 
I climbed into the bus seat for an eighteen mile drive through a 
rolling, wooded, watered country that looked like the Trossachs. 
Hills that had been stripped of trees and brush by volcanic 
action were green, and many thousand trees had been planted by 
prison labor under government supervision. That isn't a bad 
idea to have men who had ravaged and destroyed the country 
improve its roads and brighten its barren surroundings. In 
doing this they were well cared for, and must have felt im- 
proved, brightened and better. 




NEW ZEALAND 133 



STEAM HEAT 

I HAT night after dinner we were tired enough to rest, 
but we deferred that for some other time. The moon 
was full and so were the pools in the village. The 
poor natives have no fires in their homes and are liter- 
ally in hot water most of the time. They jump in, soak and 
absorb the heat, and when they are red hot they run home, 
cuddle up and sleep comfortably until cold again, when they go 
out, jump in and warm up again. To be in hot water means 
pain to us but pleasure to them. Back to the Geyser Hotel 
I went, slipped on a bathrobe, walked through a garden to the 
foot of a hill, entered a wooden pit bathroom, stripped and 
turned on the Spout bath. The water was boiling but didn't 
burn. It was hot yet I felt cool. I stood under it as when a 
boy under the gutter of the old barn in a thunder shower, and 
let the hot water pour over me. The water was salt, sulphurous 
and oily. I dried off, put on my robe, and expected to shiver 
to pieces before I reached the hotel but was as warm as if blan- 
keted in furs. The oil and mineral in the flowing water had 
filled the pores and I could have played the manly part of the 
Lady Godiva without shiver or shame. I slept so well that I 
wanted to take an extra nap next morning, but the tea fiend 
had invaded this wild country and a Maori servant woke me 
up with ''Tea, sir?" If the slop hadn't already grown cold I 
might have scalded her with it. New Zealand is tea crazy, and 
its drinkers are intemperate as to the time and amount of their 
drinking. There are as many brands of tea as of liquor, and 
they may be quite as injurious. I am tea-totally opposed to it, 
and if I had to live here I might become a whisky-drinking 
drunkard in self defense. 

THE LADY OF THE LAKE 

HE following day we autoed to the wharf on Lake Ro- 
torua and launched out with lunch and guide. We 
passed the island of Mokoia in the center of the lake. 
It looked like any other island, but like some people, 
had a history. Here lived the fathers of the tribe, the Tohun- 
gas, or sacred priests, with the sacred emblems they had brought 
from legendary Hawaiki. Of greater interest was the story 




134 NEW ZEALAND 

of the bath of Hinemoa. The guide said it took place on the 
shore of Mokoia and was the inspiration of many a song and 
poem, tableau and fireside tale. 

Once upon a time there lived a princess whose name was 
Hinemoa, and she loved a common chap who lived on this 
island. For fear she might lose her tootsey Tutanekai, or that 
some other girl might get him, she played the Leander stunt 
to her hero, and thus became a heroine. Her father had said 
" No " to her prayers to marry him, and swore if he ever showed 
his face he would kick him down stairs and across the island. 

She sent a trusty messenger to her beau and unlike the 
average girl, did all the lover daring. She told him to toot his 
horn from the island hill, she would get in her canoe and with 
love-filled paddle come to his shore and arms. Her old man 
was wise, he had been there before, knew the game, and when 
he heard Tutanekai 's horn he tied up the canoes and hid the 
paddles. Poor "Tut" waited in vain. So did Hinemoa. One 
night she said, "Canoe or no canoe, paddle or not, I'll swim 
or sink." To get her boy she made a buoy or life raft of six 
gourds, three on a side. It was dark but love lit the way. 
Striking out, kicking and floating, she was only half way across 
when she became exhausted and knew the sea-monster Taniwha 
would get her. However, the old monster felt kindly and said, 
"I'll rock you to sleep, my dear," and pushed up a pile of 
rocks for her to sit on. So she rested and then swam again until 
she reached the island. 

Not finding her lover she said, "I'll take a hot bath, any- 
way. I'm chilly, my lover isn't here, and since he has turned 
the cold shoulder on me I will warm my body and heart in 
this hot pool." The moon came up, and so did a man whom 
she welcomed because it was her sweetheart's servant. Choking 
with emotion, she pretended to be brave, spoke roughly and 
asked for a drink. He leaned over the hot spring and gave 
her the calabash of fresh water he had just taken from the lake 
for his master. Thanking him, she drank it down and smashed 
the calabash against the rock. "You're the limit," he frighten- 
edly said as he saw his pitcher broken at the well, and he 
hurried to tell his master. With a heart pining with love and 
his lips very dry, the lover told him to go again and get him a 
drink. Once more the servant filled the gourd, and again the 



NEW ZEALAND 135 

girl asked it, drank it and smashed it. Again he returned 
and told his master what had happened. This thing was kept 
up until Tutanekai ran to the spring to see who was breaking 
up his bar-room pitchers. " Come out of there, " he cried. "Who 
in hot water are you ? ' ' She answered, ' ' Your own little girlie, 
honey-dovey, who loves you, swam 'way over here to meet you, 
thinks more of you than of her father, and will not go back 
home." "Darling," he cried, "stay with me and be my love, 
and we will all the passions prove." 

So he helped her out and cloaked his arm around her. This 
was equal to an Episcopal service, and they had a big feast, 
and everybody from far and near came to see and praise the 
beautiful princess who had crossed the cold lake on a dark night. 
Her father missed his little girl, and when he learned what she 
had done he felt proud and gave her and her lover husband a 
blessing. All was well, and they lived happily ever afterwards, 
till they died. 

This was a love-match that even cold water could not put 
out. The boy was game and acted as if he were a royal prince 
by birth. They lived and loved and raised a family whose 
descendants today are proud as Lucifer when they tell how their 
great-great-grandmother sWiam to fame and posterity. The 
moral of this tale conveys an immoral lesson. It is not excusable 
even in leap-year to leave home without your bathing suit. 

My reason for repeating in substance this lovely lie, this 
piece of poetic passion and legendary "bunk," is that it is the 
first and last thing one hears on entering and leaving this dis- 
trict. I hope the gentle reader will remember this story, so 
that when a guide begins, ' * Once there lived a princess, Hinemoa 
by name" — he can say, "Oh, yes, Morrill told us all about her 
and I want to forget it. ' ' 

TROUBLED WATERS 

JAMURANA is a picturesque spot on the northeast shore 
of the lake. We landed and were hurried by a winding 
creek full of sedge and weeds, hopped into a flat boat 
and were poled and paddled between willow and cherry 

trees and green and yellow rushes to the source of the stream. 

The water came, not from a cascade, but from a cool boiling well 




136 NEW ZEALAND 

that bubbled up dark and deep blue with a mystery and a 
secret that its babbling didn't tell. We hung on to overhanging 
branches to keep our tub of a boat from swirling. It was a good 
place for some water nymphs or bathers to appear, and knowing 
that money gets almost everything, we threw pennies and three 
pence in. They didn't show up. My money was refused, for 
like Elisha's axe, it floated on the water and flat side up until 
bubbles of air struck it, when it turned over on its straight edge 
like a knife and sank. 

It was not the current but the guide who hurried us away 
from this Nature's nursery where Kingsley could have written 
another chapter in his "Water-Babies." You see, the govern- 
ment runs the tea houses and pays the guide to run the tourist 
in. So from this beautiful spot of water, color and shade we 
were rushed to the tea-house to spend our remaining ten min- 
utes. We were hotter than the tea, told the lady we came to 
see and not to swill, and reminded the guide that it would cost 
him part of his tip for trying to make tea-tipplers of us. 

Hugging the skirts of Lake Eotorua in a scandalous manner, 
we slipped through the narrows and shallows with big trout 
darting under our keel, and entered Lake Eoitoiti. We passed 
by a small island marked by a white shaft tombstone. At first 
it looked like a Mississippi river marking, but the garrulous 
guide said it was the tomb of a chief's son, and the broken shaft 
monument was not accidental but the design of the sculptor to 
show the last hope of the family was broken. 

The Maori women guides gabbled as we landed and 
offered their services. They were bare-headed, bare-legged and 
bare-faced, except the one I chose, whose chin was covered with 
blue tattoo marks instead of a beard. Her name was Harriet, 
and she had two comely daughters who wanted to guide me in 
the safe and narrow way. I decided the mother would be better, 
for abroad as well as at home it is always better to be safe 
than sorry. Harriet hurried us to the Okere Rapids that were 
making a running jump over the falls to supply the electric light 
power to Rotorua township fifteen miles away. 

Mid rock and ravine she showed me the caves where her 
ancestors had hidden in safety during their fight with the 
English. Holding a candle in one hand, and dragging me out 
with the other like a cat out of an ash-barrel, she related their 



NEW ZEALAND 137 

brave deeds worthy of a place in heroic literature. "When we 
were tired she took us back, and while we sat and rested under 
a tree, she danced a woman's "haka" dance, the kind they 
danced when they led the warriors out to fight and welcomed 
them to arms when they returned. It was a head, arm and foot 
affair. She rolled her eyes, stuck out her tongue, and sang 
words that she coyly refused to translate, either because she 
lacked English or for fear of corrupting our morals. As we 
left her she looked appealingly, put out her hand and said, 
"Have I not been good to you?" Nodding assent I rewarded 
her for valorous and virtuous conduct with some good English 
silver. 

TERRA INFIRMA 



m 



OUR carriage rolled us next to Tikitere, a segment of the 
Inferno. As Charon charged an obolos to cross the 
Styx, we had to cross the Maori guide's hand with 
silver before entering because it was private property. 
That was to be expected for it always costs to go to Hades. Like 
human fiends we roamed around in steam clouds overhead and 
by mud volcanoes that growled and bubbled like hot mush. Sol- 
fateras sang dismal steam scales, and there were boiling springs 
of double, toil and trouble if you fell in. "Lo, on a narrow neck 
of land I stand" never so appealed to me as when I stood be- 
tween these two boiling lakes. There was plenty of terror but 
no terra firma. It was a bad place to be after dark, or even for 
careless people in the daytime, and there were good illustrations 
for a sermon on the text, "Take heed to thy steps." 

There is a narrow bridge called the "Gates of Hades" where 
you stand as the steam wets you, and sulphuretted hydrogen hits 
your nose like an egg from a last year's hen's nest. If you 
are not satisfied you may look North to the "Inferno," a Jap 
devil fish-mouth thing, a mud geyser boiling its brown, bubbly, 
oily, melted mud. They are called "Bubbling Pots" because 
they suggest porridge with their slow, solemn, sullen slop and 
splutter. It is fit food for a fiend. I wondered whether Old 
Nick was trying to cool it or whether it was indigestible and he 
had thrown it up. 



138 NEW ZEALAND 



OHINEMUTU 

OINE night as the moon was scudding through the clouds 
J we skipped to the old town of Ohinemutu, on the shore 
of Lake Kotorua, to attend a native church service. 
There was a good crowd of Maoris who sang hymns by 
the dozen in their native tongue with force and rhythm. The 
pastor addressed them, spoke a few words of English to us, and 
then proceeded to give an illustrated lecture on Jerusalem. The 
slides didn't fit the machine and repeatedly stuck between Jeru- 
salem and Jericho. After service he showed us the new edifice 
and introduced us to the old native carver who had made the fine 
pulpit, bench, side-wall, ceiling and other carvings. What first 
had looked to me like a lot of plane geometrical figures were 
found to be ornamental and had as much meaning as most mural 
decorations. 

We came out of church and glanced at the little native houses 
with carved door posts, at the old church, now used as a kind of 
lumber room, at the Square with its big whares and a monument 
to good Queen Victoria who is ever to be remembered as an 
example of right living. The streets steamed and the gutters 
ran with hot sulphur water, and I hope the husband who comes 
home late at night is sober. If not he is liable to get not only 
a scolding but a scalding, and be made to cook the breakfast 
over one of these boiling springs. We saw the old tribe burial 
grounds and the carved posts of a sunken fort called Pah. In 
the distance lay the historic island of Mokoia bathed in moon- 
light. The guide began to tell me the bath and calabash love 
tale I'd heard the day before. I told him to hold his horses, 
which meant he was to give no rein to his imagination. 

POOH-POOH, POHUTU! 

HE Geyser Hotel had promised us something special 
in the geyser line for Easter and the little ^'Wocker" 
village was full of expectant people. So far the weather 
had been fair, but this Sunday I exchanged my ordi- 
nary spout bath for a shower bath that came down from the 
skies in wet sheets that wrapped one in cold embrace. 

Pohutu geyser was advertised as the big act that would 
promptly perform without fail. The crowd stood around and 




NEW ZEALAND 139 



waited. There was a hitch somewhere. The guard was anxious 
to please us and tried to coax it. He had a string tied to a 
lid in the geyser, and would pull it up or let it down to get a 
pressure necessary to spout the twenty to one hundred feet it 
had been advertised. Like every other thing so far it was slow, 
and we begged our guide to lose no time in showing us some of 
the side show sights. She knew Maori legends, life, curios 
and customs, and her descriptions were more animated, colored 
and interesting than the phenomena she showed us. On the 
plateau we saw the ''Brain Pot," so called from the legend 
that a warrior from a rival tribe was caught and killed and 
his brains throAvn in here. Our path lay by steam vents, bub- 
bling mud craters, colored pools and extinct geysers. The 
' ' Torpedo ' ' fired and echoed like the grunts of dying pigs 
that were said to have fallen in and been cooked. The 
Wairoa geyser was a mere memory. Across the hot water 
stream by the Taupo road, there were mud-volcanoes and a 
warm opal colored lake. Once she pointed to a dangerous spot, 
and unangelic and fool-like I rushed to see it, but she caught 
my hand and held it so tight and long that her nervous fright 
was communicated, and I learned I was in a dangerous condi- 
tion. My wife came up just then and I was saved a nervous 
collapse. 

To show how the natives live the government has built a 
grand Pah or model Maori fort. "Within the stockade were 
houses, barns, poles carved like Totem poles, wash basins, canoes 
and utensils. The fort itself looked like a bamboo tower. We 
entered some of the native huts, but outside cleanliness and air 
were better than rain-shelter. 

Back we came to Pohutu, drenched and bedraggled, and 
waited for the fireworks or waterworks. Te Horo, a hot water 
well 20 feet in diameter, furnishes the power and rises from 
the Devil's kitchen where Satan is seasoning the soup with 
sulphur. It steams and boils, and when it is almost brimful 
blows thousands of pretty glassy bubbles, as if a kinder- 
garten were having recess sport. I might say soap bubbles, 
for the new keeper was so anxious to please his visitors and 
make a record for himself that he threw a cake of Pears' soap 
in the water. This upset Pohutu 's stomach so badly that she 
threw up fountains and spurts and splashes fifty feet high. 



140 NEW ZEALAND 



IMPRESSIONS 




jN OUR way back to the hotel to get some dry clothes 
we saw some natives outdoors in improvised bathtubs; 
girls jumping from a high bridge and diving for pen- 
nies, and some old women preparing their supper by 
wrapping their fish and vegetables in a cloth and setting it over 
a steam hole, which is their fireless cooker. We looked in huts 
and kodaked carvings and church; visited a slab tomb with 
carved posts and rails that looked like a bedstead whose 
occupant was lying dead asleep, and passed by pools where boys, 
girls and old women were absorbing heat enough to keep from 
freezing in their fireless houses. Some children danced the 
"haka" for a '^ penny a hak," and it was amusing to see their 
moving tongues, eyes and limbs, and the palms of their hands 
held out for money. "Walking near a government public bath 
house and along a fiery river we wound around to the back 
entrance of the hotel where this hot water was channeled for 
our bath. 

A wet drink, a dry suit, a good dinner, a backlog fire, some 
piano music, and I strolled to the veranda. The moon was full 
and glorious and the quiet was all around us until my big-bodied 
friend, the Geyser Hotel proprietor, came up and said, ''Doctor, 
you leave in the morning — you are satisfied? Tell me how you 
have enjoyed yourself and how this compares with your National 
Yellowstone Park." I told him that comparisons were odorous, 
that I was from America, and disliked to seem discourteous. He 
laughed and said, ''On the square, I want to know." Pointing 
to the big silver moon overhead I replied that there was as much 
difference between our National Yellowstone Park and his Ro- 
torua as there was between the full moon and a Jack-o'-lantern. 
He made no further inquiry. 

RUBBING NOSES 



T THE depot I learned the Maori way to say "Good- 
bye." It isn't an exchange of nosegays but a nose 
massage. I asked "Edie" to greet me in that fashion, 
but she said it wasn 't customary, for tourists, and there 
were too many people looking on. However, I overcame her 
native scruples, retired to a corner of the depot, stood in the 




NOSE GREETINGS 



ROTORUA, N. Z. 




'TOTALISATOR"— RACE TRACK GAMBLING AUCKLAND, N. Z. 



NEW ZEALAND 141 



sunshine, wiped my nose while she wiped hers, then clasped her 
hand and we were mutually drawn towards each other until our 
noses touched and rubbed. "L" was nosing around and kodaked 
us in this vis-a-vis. This may be a more sanitary way of greeting 
than to kiss lips, but it is less satisfactory. Esquimaux and 
horses rub noses, and "horse sense" is at a premium in this 
world. Perhaps this Maori custom is not so senseless as it looks. 
Lip-kissing is unnatural to the Tongans and Maoris, hand- 
shaking was a missionary innovation. 



T 



LETTERS 

HE train beat its way back through the bush to Auck- 
land and en route I noticed the novel way in which 
Mm N^'^ Zealand distributes her mail. The mail pouch was 
open, and so was the door, and one by one the letters 
and papers flew out into the woods and pastures. This must 
have been the rural free delivery. But it was too free, warning 
was given, the train was stopped, and an attendant went back 
and collected the mail. This was an accident, but if I had been 
postman and found letters addressed to the following named 
places on the route I would have fired them out of the door 
and let them reach their owners as best they could. Here are 
a few of the names and they were so rough I broke my pencil 
point several times before I could write them down. No wonder 
the road bed is so rocky and one finds it difficult to take a nap. 
This is not the order of the stations, but I have arranged a few 
alphabetically for easy reference : 

Matamata, Mangapeehi, Motumaoho, Ngaruawahia, Ohakune, 
Otorohanga, Pukekohe, Putaruru, Taumarunui, Tekuiti. 

What 's in a name ? All the alphabet. If any witch has run 
short of incantations the use of the above names would surely 
do the business. 

CARVINGS AND CANVAS 

|UCKLAND again, but there was no room for love or 
money at our hotel. It was full, and so were most of 
the men, for the ground floor was one big bar with 
liquor enough to float schooners and all kinds of craft. 
Other hotels were full, so I managed to land our party in three 




142 NEW ZEALAND 

different places. Why this hegira on Saturday before Easter? 
To serve God Sunday ? No. The crowd had come for the races, 
to worship the devil on Monday. 

Sodom had its Lot and I found a lot of people who included 
Easter with Christmas as the two days in the 365 when they 
were to worship and thank God for all the past favors of the 
year. We went to St. Patrick's in the morning and to the 
Anglican St. Matthew's at night. In the afternoon we visited 
the Museum where all Maori-land is on exhibition, its fauna, 
flora, implements, war weapons, carvings, gold, gems and green 
stone. There was a big war canoe that could hold a small 
army with no fear of capsizing. The most curious and inter- 
esting thing to me was the kindness of the keeper, who per- 
sonally pointed out and explained the exhibits and allowed me 
to photo the wares, whares and carvings. 

Their one Apollo ideal is always and everywhere a carved 
dwarf. He is a grotesque gargoyle, bow-legged, with hands wildly 
clutching his stomach, cheeks puffed out, bullet eyes shooting 
glances and his tongue poked out. The figure suggests the early 
days when I stole into a farmer 's orchard with the usual griping 
results. The eyes are striking and staring and are made from 
the pav/a shell that resembles mother-of-pearl. These stomach- 
ache statues or carvings are all alike in substance and spirit 
and are found as ornaments on canoes and houses. This idol is 
a nightmare and not a dream, yet the Maoris like it. In art 
as in religion we find there is no accounting for taste, and what 
to one is a damned error is a holy thing to another and he pro- 
ceeds to bless it with a Scripture text. 

Some of the carvings are not only quaint but questionable. 
They were not taken from sporting houses, but are decorations 
for a home with a wife's and children's contemplation. One 
righteous missionary is said to have taken his axe and ruined 
the "very fine" carving we were studying. He chopped off 
enough indecencies to make a pile of kindling wood. ''Eyes, 
but see not, ' ' is what the average tourist does to a Maori carving. 
No wonder the native is degenerate and dying off like the Ha- 
waiians, and that the mighty v/arrior has become a milksop 
who dances and swims for tourist money. These carved figures 
on his whares or native wood houses are licentious as those 
I saw at the Nepal temple in Benares or the pictures on Pom- 



NEW ZEALAND 143 



peiian walls. They would make excellent decorations for a 
club house in Sodom and Gomorrah. Two relics of the past 
that had floated down the stream of time were the big warrior 
canoes inside and the live lizards outside, the last of their race. 
The walls of the Art Gallery are covered with works of local 
and foreign artists. There were no good nudes and no bad 
ones for the Maori carvings in the Museum are sufficient to 
fill any long- felt want for a long time to come. What I most 
enjoyed was Artist Lindauer's collection of Maori Chief paint- 
ings. The famous warriors look at you from the walls, natural 
as life though many of them are dead. The artist gives the 
face, skin-tint and tattoo marks as if they were colored photo- 
graphs. Among the striking pictures was one of the priest 
"Tohunga." He is under some tabu penance, and not daring 
to touch food he kneels down with his hands placed behind him 
while a little naked Maori girl feeds him with boiled potatoes. 

IN EDEN 

AjDAM tramped around Eden and we four descendants 
I trammed out three miles to Mount Eden. The ser- 
pent temptation here was in the form of a tea-hoase. 
Some of our party fell by the wayside, but others said, 
"Get behind me." Mary, "h" and I climbed around and up 
over 600 feet. The view is paradisaical. From this height you 
look out on city and country, suburbs, harbors, mountain ranges, 
on more than fifty extinct volcanoes, in a range of five miles, 
and at the triple tiaraed Rangitoto that overlooks the land and 
sea scape. There was a sunset, gold and glorious, and if Eve 
and Adam had as fine a prospect as this, I wonder how they 
ever did anything that put them out. This Eden summit is an 
extinct crater and in the form of an amphitheatre. Long ago 
it was a Pah or Maori stronghold, as is proved by the ruins 
of the fortifications that rise in terraces from the bottom to the 
top. The New Zealander may either drive or walk up, but he 
always takes his girl with him. You know Adam was lonely 
in Eden, and God said, '*It is not good that man should be 
alone; I will make an helpmeet for him." He did, and you 
know what happened, for the guilty, naked pair hid themselves. 
Times are better now; the gates of this Mount Eden are shut 
early and the police regulations are improved. 



144 NEW ZEALAND 



EASTER GAMBLING 




jEFORE going to the races I went into a barber-shop. 
Taking me for a muttonhead, they sheared me like a 
sheep and when I came out the bootblacks "cleaned," 
but did not shine my shoes. Ellerslie is the head- 
quarters of the Auckland racing club. I was railroaded into 
the race track by buying a railroad ticket which admitted me 
to the grounds. This was cheap, too cheap, the ladies thought, 
so they paid ten shillings more, which exclusive and rich priv- 
ilege permitted them to bet nothing less than five dollars on 
each race. We couldn't bet less than two and a half dollars, 
and I didn't care to do that, though I was earnestly invited to 
by a number of men and women. Merlon tried it and said it 
was lots of fun, but I thought he worked hard, for he was now 
"in" and then "out" and finally only broke even. 

The Colonists are all good sports and will bet on a card, on 
which a fly has lit, to see whether it is a one or two spot. The 
horses are nothing in looks or gait that appeals to anyone bred 
in Old Kentucky. The betting game is the thing wherein to 
catch the coin of the crowd. The main event is not the horse 
or the racing but the gambling. The government has re- 
peatedly tried to remedy the gambling evil and to limit, if not 
eradicate, the world-desire to get something for nothing or 
much for little. To this desired end it has legalized the "to- 
talisator," a kind of mechanical bookmaker. Our European 
friends would call it the " Paris-Mutuel, " the idea of which is 
to give the gamblers a square deal for their money. The gov- 
ernment's relation to this game seems to me as creditable as if 
Uncle Sam had run a Louisiana state lottery instead of abolish- 
ing it. It looks as if the New Zealand government was jealous 
of the gambling rake off and wanted a big sum for itself. 

I didn't bet and never have bet a dime's worth of anything 
in my life. I know this is a painful and late confession to my 
friends who have thought all along I never missed a chance on 
anything. This is the gambling game. You see the horses, a 
gait takes your fancy and you put up your money with the 
government of&cial, who puts down a numbered ticket. Thou- 
sands of others do the same thing and you know it because the 
number is shot up in big figures that all may see. If the favor- 




NEW ZEALAND • 145 



ite horse wins the money is equally divided among the gamblers 
after the government has taken its share, while there is a de- 
creasing percentage returned to those who bet on the horse that 
came in second or third. If the majority have backed the 
winning favorite you will probably get back just what you 
put in. If you were fortunate enough to back a winning out- 
sider and you were the only one, you would get the whole pile. 
In Australia you get your share minus ten per cent, the govern- 
ments gets seven and a half per cent and allows the promoters 
two and a half per cent to keep up the game, buildings and 
the fund. 

PILGRIMS' PROGRESS 

I HE passing show at Wellington took passage on the 
fast palatial steamer "Maori." We waited for them 

p^^ and were glad to, for it was a good company and it 
would have been too bad to leave them behind and 
disappoint the Middle Island pleasure-seekers who were look- 
ing for them. ''L" and I had been assigned a large cabin 
alone, and entering found it a small one with a man in it. 
When the clerk saw the difficulty he appreciated the value of 
friendship and gave us the big room next to his own on the 
upper deck. 

We rose early next morning to see the sights and scenery 
in a clear sky. I had a big appetite and sat at the table with 
Doctor MacMillan Brown. He was so well informed on the sub- 
jects of war, home, government and travel that I spent most of 
the hour in putting ideas into my ear in place of food in my 
stomach. 

The approach to Lyttleton was delightful. We nosed into 
the portals known as the "heads" and sailed up a splendid 
rock-bound natural harbor with yellow and green hills that 
climbed up several hundred feet on each side. We entered the 
moles and were berthed, and grabbing my valise I walked 
across the big wharf to the waiting train that was bound for 
Christchurch, the other side of the Port Hills. For years peo- 
ple had to walk or drive over the bridle path, but we burrowed 
through a rock that took six years and barrels of money to 
bore. In a few minutes we had traveled from salt water, 
through rock and darkness, to a flat plain. 



146 NEW ZEALAND 

Acres and acres blossomed with white wool that had recently 
been shorn from fine sheep. Horses were blanketed, but the 
children ran around in the chill air bare-legged to the crotch, 
and I wondered if that was a good way to teach them modesty 
in later years. 

At the Christchurch station there were tracks, but no trams, 
and I learned that it was Sunday, cars didn't run in the morn- 
ing and travelers were compelled to walk. We started and 
never stopped till we reached Cathedral Square, entered the 
English cathedral with our rags, tags and bags, and since there 
was no place to check our bags at the door we carried them up 
the aisle. Bunyan's pilgrim had a pack on his back that rolled 
off when he saw the cross; we carried ours until we found the 
first vacant seat. The worshippers looked curiously at us, some 
with astonishment and others with horror as if we were spies 
who had come to blow up the building. 

The service had already begun and had we stopped at the 
hotel first it would have been too late. Music is a great feature 
in the Church of England service, but there was little of it 
here, and the rector explained and excused it by saying the 
weather had been very cold, so that most of the choir were laid 
up at home doctoring their throats and lungs. The sermon was 
scholarly, reference was made to the war and the prayer was 
an earnest appeal to the God of battles to give success to the 
English allied forces. Bag in hand, we marched out to the 
swelling organ music and struck across the Square to the 
Cotter's hotel. It wasn't a Saturday night, but a Sunday noon. 
The motherly wife of the proprietor took pity on us, gave us 
the best front room overlooking the Square and set us down 
to a table filled with all that was wholesome and necessary for 
a Sunday dinner. 

DUMB BELLES 

FTER dinner we climbed to the top of a tram car and 
rode eight miles to the Sumner ocean beach resort. 
Motor boats were chugging, lovers on the sand were 
hugging and on the pier a man was experimenting 
how he could photograph a little fish and make it look like a 
whale. Next we explored a gigantic cave rock that had been 




NEW ZEALAND 147 

eaten out by the waves, looked at the foam and listened to the 
echo of the sea through the corridors. Sumner means good 
old summer time sunshine. It is bright here, even in the winter 
when it is cloudy everywhere else on the island, and the resi- 
dents boast an average of over five hours sunshine the year 
round. 

Looking down the beach I saw fifty or more girls, more or 
less pretty, from twelve to fifteen years of age, sitting on an 
embankment. They were dressed much alike, their hats were 
just alike and on each band I read the letters "P. F. D. T." 
Approaching them I smiled, they did, too, and I asked the one 
who seemed to be the leader, ''Excuse me, I am an inquisitive 
stranger. Won't you tell me what those letters stand for?" 
She sat silent and I stood embarrassed and repeated the ques- 
tion. She deigned no answer, and I went away, saying some- 
thing I hoped she didn't hear. Walking up to an old man 
sitting on a bench, I said, ''What's the matter with those girls? 
I asked a civil question and they froze me out with a stare and 
wouldn't say a thing." He laughed, and slapping his knee, 
replied, "Why, man, they didn't hear you; they're all deaf." 
Back I went to an elderly lady near them and told her what 
had happened. She, too, laughed and I joined in. Motioning 
to a young Maori girl to come to her, she pointed to my lips and 
requested me to ask the girl's name and age. I did and the girl 
read my lips and answered vocally in a clear and distinct man- 
ner. Surely the prophecy is fulfilled, "The deaf shall hear 
and the dumb speak," The woman was a teacher in a school 
that had been maintained for thirty years, the only school for 
the deaf in the Dominion. The building cost over $100,000, 
there were fifteen acres of land laid out in orchards, gardens 
and landscapes, and 100 pupils and trained specialists. The 
method is oral and by lip movement, words without sound. 
These children are taught to speak and read one's lips just as 
we listen to sound. The moral of this incident is that even a 
dumb woman or girl will talk if you give her a chance. 




148 NEW ZEALAND 



COLD COMFORT 

UNDAY night in Christchurch a Christian is expected 
to go to a church of Christ. The Cathedral was chilly, 
and the man who sat next to me with vinegar aspect 
was Mr. Pickles, whom I had met at the hotel. He 
told me of a public organ recital which would take place, after 
the service, in his Majesty's Theatre and that he would show 
us the way there. The concert was free except for a voluntary 
offering at the door for the war-fund. It was a big organ 
program and player, but given to a small audience. The room 
was cold as a New England barn. There were plenty of organ 
pipes but no stove or steam pipes. Christchurch people are 
warm-hearted, but their rooms are cold storage plants. In 
church and theatre you can only keep warm with extra wraps. 
The music was good and I wanted to applaud, but there was a 
printed statement on the program forbidding it. I didn't even 
have this excuse for keeping my hands warm. Accordingly, I 
sat in icy silence listening coldly and looking occasionally at 
the architecture that recalled the definition of ''frozen music." 
The organ music was not Bach but Chopin and other piano 
writers, on the supposition that the player and hearers were 
church members and wanted something lively after so serious 
a Sunday as Christchurch celebrates. We walked back to the 
hotel for the cars that are only run Sunday afternoon are run 
in after dark. 

A HOLY TERROR 

|0 SOONER had I reached the hotel than my teeth began 
to ache with cold. I took a hot drink and they ached 
worse. I went to bed expecting to sleep alone, but 
neuralgia climbed in with me. I sprang up, looked out 
of the window and saw dental signs on both sides of the streets, 
but it was late and Sunday. Here a doctor might be arrested 
for doing unnecessary work on a tooth even were he in his office. 
So I jumped back into bed with a jumping toothache. Perhaps 
I slept some from nervous exhaustion, yet I heard the big clock 
strike twelve, two, four, six and eight. A toothache is no 
laughing matter, except when you take gas. Strange that in 
"Much Ado About Nothing" one should find these words, "I 




NEW ZEALAND 149 



have the toothache. What? Sigh for the toothache?" I was 
no patient philosopher to endure the toothache, but a mad poet, 
and quoted Burns, 

"My curse upon thy venom 'd stang, 
That shoots my tortured gums alang. ' ' 

A CITY ON WHEELS 

THE morning saw me looking out of the window on a 
city of wheels. The town boasts 30,000 bikes for busi- 
ness and hikes. Everything is flat, and there are no 
cross-town roads. If you want a chop, chocolate or cup 
of coffee, ' ' bike it. ' ' So they come and go by ones, twos and threes 
along and around with a charge, Chester, charge. The inhabit- 
ants are divided into those who run bikes or are run over by 
them, I counted them until I had wheels in my head. It recalled 
the ancient American history when everybody was astride of one. 
Our bikes were thrown into the junk heap and are now running 
around in auto form. 

In this sunshiny town the only sad things are the weeping 
willows. They mourn along the grassy slopes and shrubby banks 
of the Avon river, where youth row for exercise or cast a line 
for a trout. I thought this river was named after the bard of 
Avon but learned it was in honor of a general. It doesn 't matter 
much, for Shakespeare has nearly all the world's honors any- 
way. 

From Christchurch 's name one might have expected a famous 
philosopher or theologian to have lived there, but its contribu- 
tion to the sum of the world's genius and godliness is a cham- 
pion tennis player. 

Christchurch is the capital of Canterbury, and although I 
was no Chaucer I made a pilgrimage and learned a few tales. 
The town is regularly built and is a good lesson in geometry 
Vvdth its Squares and Triangles. It was founded in 1850 by the 
Canterbury Association as a church of England settlement. Its 
leading industries are bicycles, iron foundries and the making of 
farm machinery. It believes in play as well as work, for there 
are two popular seaside resorts at Sumner and New Brighton, 
and there is a Hagley Park with four hundred acres of recrea- 
tion ground. Its most important buildings are the Christ Ca- 
thedral and University. 



150 NEW ZEALAND 



STRANGER THAN FICTION 

r^F^HE New Zealander believes in an education, free, com- 
L_Jl._J P^lsc>ry and secular, and one may step from the public 
^^^1 school into the university. The "U" looks English, 
l i^l^ l is clad in ivy, has much to be proud of, and boasts 
that it was the first British University College that opened its 
doors to women. 

This is a small town but it has a ''whale" of a museum, with 
a skeleton of the biggest whale ever found. Entering the mam- 
mal room one finds specimens from cats to kangaroos, while the 
ethnological department exhibits what wide world nature can do. 
The New Zealand room has a collection of skeletons of Moas. 
The Moa was a bird thirteen feet high that made an ostrich look 
like a chicken. The museum is built on Moa bones, that is, of 
these birds found in Canterbury and sold to the world's mu- 
seums. The bird is extinct, along with the geysers and volcanoes, 
but left his bones as a legacy. As I looked at his skeleton I 
wondered how big an egg he came from, where it was laid, how 
hatched, where he found worms or food big enough to eat, what 
kind of a noise he made, whether he and the mountains were the 
original and only settlers and for how long, and whether it were 
true that there were no more Moas here though there were 
Samoa islands. I think New Zealand should have been named 
Samoa after this bird and Samoa called by some other name. 
There is a story that Mr. Moa was so fast that he was employed 
to carry the mail and that the N. Z. railroad grew jealous and 
killed him off. However, he may have been so "fast" that he 
naturally died early. I saw the N. Z. kea, a "bloody" parrot 
with perverted tastes. In his early days he hunted for grubs 
in the dense grass, but now he gets his grub on the sheep's 
back, pouncing upon the wool and piercing the skin until he 
reaches the kidney fat. Keas have been kno^vn to kill 200 sheep 
in a single night. 

There was a model Maori house well furnished with the best 
of native art, life and work, and some old tomb posts and slabs 
well carved with stone implements, yet all were marred and 
marked by low ideals, many of them below the belt. The big- 
gest thing of all, the pride and boast of the city, is the skeleton 
of the largest whale ever found. It is in a shed by itself and 
looks to be a hundred feet long. It was a Leviathan, large as 




NEW ZEALAND 151 

a boat, a fish big enough to swallow a baker's dozen of Jonahs. 
In fact, he was so immense that all the Avon river couldn't float 
his tail. 

We visited the Art Guild and saw some students' work and 
a few students working. When the clock struck high noon they 
stopped for lunch and we went. 

"BLUFF" OYSTERS 

JEW ZEALAND is a great fish and oyster island. I had 
heard of the Bluff oysters and wanted to sample them. 
They had tried to bluff me in believing they were 
better than our Blue Points but I v/as from Missouri. 
There are many oyster houses, from which we selected one whose 
owner's name is Dennis. Mr. D. was delighted when he found 
an American had come 10,000 miles to eat a Bluff oyster. I told 
him four dozen vv^ould be enough to give them a fair trial. We 
went up stairs, and when I gave the girl my order she thought 
I was crazy. "L" and I ordered them raw, stewed and fried, 
and the cooks looked through the door to see what two cannibals 
had sent in such an order. People nearby forgot to eat their 
chops watching us slip the big things down. They were large 
as an ash tray or pickle dish. Dishes for the raw ones seemed 
unnecessary, for each shell was like a platter, but the taste was 
small compared with our U. S. ones. It was rank, fishy and 
tough, and well called "Bluff." Thackeray ate one of our 
oysters and said it made him feel as if he had swallowed a live 
baby. One of these might have suggested a small, hot water 
bag boiled in salt water, well greased and peppered. 

CHRISTCHURCH 

|OET HILLS lie round Christchurch as the mountains 
around Jerusalem, and we rode round what the train 
had pulled us through. The view was fine, flat and 

far away. The city below looked plain and level and 

through the purple haze the Southern Alps loomed in the dis- 
tance. It was fine atmosphere for an artist, but very bad for 
my neuralgia. However, I hoped the soft sea air might minister 
to my diseased tooth, and pluck from my jaw the ''rooted sor- 
row, " so I took a tram for Brighton beach, said to be the biggest 




152 NEW ZEALAND 

and best in the world, Avith forty miles of clean sand and ideal 
surf-bathing. The season was over. It was cold enough on land, 
and a little more so at the end of a pier where a few men were 
fishing. I bought a ticket and walked out. The only swells 
I saw were the waves, though in summer there are many others. 

Christchurch is a flat town, but the spires and the aspirations 
of the people are high. The Anglican Cathedral, so big and 
beautiful now, was not finished beyond its foundations for years 
until after the historian Froude visited Christchurch and poked 
fun at it. The Roman Catholic Basilica afforded us rest and 
shelter in its front portico between the two large frontal towers. 

This is a good town, and everybody belongs to Christ church, 
I guess, except a man who tore across the street by the Vic- 
toria clock tower and stopped me. ' ' Hello, what 's up ? " I said. 
He answered, "That settles it, I win." He had bet we were 
Americans. I felt sorry we had set such a bad example in a 
Christian town. I wonder how much he won. 

At night we went back to Christchurch 's port, Lyttleton, 
and boarded the ''Maori." Fitzgerald met us, and once more 
kindly gave us the fine stateroom next to his. 

PELORUS JACK 

I ELORUS JACK is one of the best known characters in 
New Zealand. His name is in every mouth, his photo 
on all post cards. He is protected by an act of Par- 
liament and is the pilot of Cook Straits. I was anxious 
to see him, but he has disappeared, and for three years no one 
has heard of him. His absence has caused great sorrow among 
the sailors. Pelorus Jack was a whale, social and scientific. He 
came out to follow the ships and would swim just before the bow 
and pilot the ship in and trail when the steamer had entered. A 
cranky traveler once pulled out his gun and took a shot at P. J., 
and the sailors were so enraged they tried to mob him and throw 
him overboard. 





NEW ZEALAND 153 



TOO SLOW 

I ELLINGTON is New Zealand's capital. It is at the 
head of Port Nicholson on a circular harbor that is 
one of the safest and largest in N. Z, It is hemmed 
in by hills, and for a week we found it hilly and chilly. 
We Vv^anted to make some side trips to some of the show places — 
Mt. Cook, Wanganui river and Buller gorge, and Mr. Hill of 
the government tourist agency was as anxious to have us go 
as we were to go. He couldn't fix it, for the season was late, 
the hotels closed and transportation poor and irregular. So we 
chafed like a caged American eagle that wants to fly and cannot. 
It did seem painfully ridiculous that when there were a few 
sights that were said to be worth seeing in this little island there 
were no facilities to get there. Trains and boats run infre- 
quently, and poor or no connections are made. We wasted time 
enough at Wellington to have seen every beauty and grandeur 
spot in the two islands if there only had been tourist service 
such as we have in America. It's all right if you live in N. Z., 
or expect to stay for a year or more, but for a man who lives in 
a big, wonderful world and wants to see some of its everything, 
life is too short. Again and again I was asked, *'Why hurry, 
and why not stay longer?" I didn't want to, it wasn't neces- 
sary. All towns look so much alike that one only wants the 
striking things. I wasn't here for my health or rest, to drink 
tea, play cricket or take twenty-five mile walks over miniature 
mountains. Foreign tourists would think better of N. Z. travel 
if the government spent more money on train service and con- 
nections and less on tea-houses and folders. I was sincerely 
disappointed, and Mr. Wilson, of the Advertising Bureau, sympa- 
thized with me so much that he invited me to his office and gave 
me a set of N. Z. slides to show American audiences what I 
didn't see. Personally here, as in other Colonial cities, men of 
official position did everything they could to make my visit pleas- 
ant and informing. I am not ungrateful and will return the 
compliment if they will come to Minneapolis. They laugh at 
Americans for being like the hare, and we smile at their tortoise 
gait though we are willing to admit they sometimes get there 
first. 




154 NEW ZEALAND 



HIKES 

I ELLINGTON does Y/ell in an observation tram sight- 
seer. We left the postoffice about ten o'clock A. M. 
and took a thirty mile ride for fifty cents, hitting all 
the high spots. The car ran around the hills and we 
saw splendid harbor views, passed football and cricket grounds, 
and visited Lyall Bay on Cook's Straits where the cold wild 
waves v/ere saying, ' ' Pelorus Jack is gone, and no fair city mer- 
maids plunge in our depths to find him." We went to Day's 
bay with its fine sandy beach and prettily laid out grounds. At 
the height of the season fine fellows and females exchange em- 
braces with the waves and each other. N. Z. lovers don't sit 
and spoon so much as walk. The boy says, ' ' Get your cane and 
we will take a twenty-five mile hike, ' ' and she does, and they do, 
and hundreds of others do the same thing. I saw lovers, mar- 
ried couples and families by dozens with long pancake shaped 
hats, canes, short skirts, rolled up trousers and heavy shoes, 
walking and climbing as if the city had been bombarded or 
plague-stricken and they were fleeing for safety. 

We met some surprises at the Zoo. The grounds are in a 
fine natural wood easy for animals and hard up-hill climbing for 
tourists. I met many of my old Ark descendants whose brothers 
and sisters are in other zoos, and in addition was introduced 
to a new one, an emu. He was visiting from Australia, and so 
were some pretty Sydney girls who saw me kodak him. Birds of 
a feather flock together, for the emu was bold and so were they. 
Their leader stepped up to me and said, "Photo us instead of 
that homely bird," and I wanted to, but my wife develops the 
films and I might expose myself to criticism. 

It was easy to see the Houses of Parliament because they 
were not in session ; to come out and look at the general Govern- 
ment buildings that everyone tells you are "The largest wooden 
structures in the world"; (they would have been nearer the 
truth if they had said the "ugliest") ; to scan the Library with 
its few rare volumes and manuscripts ; to tramp around the 
Museum with its many Maori memorials; to wonder at the 
little Art Gallery that shows the Wellingtonites think more of 
cheese, butter and mutton than of painting and statuary, and 
to study the Botanical garden's most interesting object, the 



NEW ZEALAND 155 



kiosk, where you gulp tea and take in a fine view of the city and 
surroundings. 

Speaking of tea reminds me of my fellow shipmate, Mr. 
Harkness, a prominent citizen here, who was on the "Marama" 
when she bumped the 'Frisco rocks, and who later sailed with 
us from Hawaii to Fiji. I accepted his invitation to call at his 
office at 10 A. M. He was pleasant and informing. Suddenly 
our visit was interrupted by a boy who bolted into the office, 
not with a telegram, but a tray of tea, I knew what I would 
have to do, because I couldn't get out of the door and it was too 
high to jump from the window to the street. I folded my hands 
and looked resigned, and when he asked if I would have tea 
with milk in it I thanked him and said, "A little milk, please, 
with no tea." He said it was a regular custom with him and 
he could as easily do without his "bawth" as his tea. I fear 
the tea plant runs the Colonies. 

ELECTION DAY 

ELLINGTON women are privileged characters, though 
I saw a few who had lost theirs. Walking towards the 
wharf I noticed a crowd of men in front of the post- 
office who were looking at and listening to some one. 
I was curious and came close, which led someone to say, "Give 
the Yankee a chance. ' ' There in the center was a woman stand- 
ing on a chair and up for her rights. She was neatly dressed 
and made a logical, impassioned speech to the voters urging 
them to vote for labor candidates. In America and England 
she would be called a suffragette, but here she is a voter on any 
question and can give you the reason why. It was a mixed 
and tough looking crowd, yet they were attentive and respect- 
ful, applauded and made exclamation after every point she 
made. I am sure she got their votes, 

I went from this election speech to the city hall and found 
a group of earnest women at the door with badges in hand 
which they gave the voters. As I approached, one of them came 
up to me and said she was sure I was one of them and intended 
to vote for their man. I replied I wished I could, but I was an 
American, At this word half a dozen of the pretty creatures, 
moved with pity, and you know what that's kin to, replied, 
' ' That 's too bad, but wear our badge, see how we work, and when 




156 NEW ZEALAND 

you go home see that your sisters get the same equal chance." 
America may be first in war and peace but not in woman suf- 
frage, and to help the good cause I said I would take their pic- 
tures home and show them on the lecture platform. 

Private electioneering is not permitted at the booth, yet who 
can measure the influence of these earnest women? I am sure 
many a man who intended to vote crooked did just the opposite 
when he looked straight into their eyes. Among the ladies was 
the mayor's wife, Mrs. Luke. She introduced me to His Honor 
and he honored me with a friendly talk on Colonial and city 
conditions, and the value of the Australian ballot system, al- 
though he was a New Zealander. 

That night I stood out in the drizzle with ten thousand men 
and women before the newspaper office to get the returns. It 
was a serious affair. The bulletins were received in silence, as 
if they were from the bedside of the dying king. "When the 
result was announced, and the present incumbent, Mr. Luke, was 
re-elected, some of the women whom I had met at the hall said 
to me, ' ' We did it, ' ' and I was glad of it. This was quite a con- 
trast to a U. S. election, when we shove, sing and shout at the 
bulletins and have moving pictures and music between the an- 
nouncements. 

Let woman vote here, there and everywhere as often as she 
can. 

SHOULD WOMEN VOTE? 

[HE Constitutional Amendment defeat of woman suf- 
frage at "Washington, D. C, classes the brain and heart 
of the home with minors, aliens, idiots, lunatics and 
criminals. 

The memory of Eve is traduced and the mother of our Lord 
slandered by a pack of pin-headed politicians, men of low-browed 
ideals who fear that a woman's vote for virtue will offset theirs 
for vice and that feminine godliness might frustrate their foul 
graft. 

It is an un-American, unfair, unkind, un- Christian thing to 
place our women in the class of heathen countries which deny 
her equal rights, keep her as a beast of burden and animal play- 
thing, making her devilish instead of divine. 

America is what the home is; the home is what the woman 





WOMEN VOTING 



WELLINGTON, N. Z. 



NEW ZEALAND 157 

makes it, but it will never be thoroughly protected, pious and 
patriotic until she can vote against the vice and villainy which 
endanger and seek to destroy her husband, sons and daughters. 

Woman is in the world to stay ; it is too late to remove her to 
Oriental tutelage. She has advanced from naked barbarism to 
the position of veiled Oriental, unveiled European, and able and 
amiable American in kitchen and caucus, library and lecture 
platform, teacher and thinker. 

Why should women vote? 

Because it is their right, ''Taxation without representation" 
is unjust. 

Because "Just governments derive their powers from the 
consent of the governed." 

Because this is a "Government of the people, by the people 
and for the people," 

Because it will elevate them intellectually, compelling them 
to leave the shrine of folly and fashion to study the duties and 
dangers of public affairs. 

Because the improvement of woman means the improvement 
of the human race, since great men come of great mothers. 

Because her vote will better the laws and government in re- 
spect to higher standards of education and morality. 

Because it will give American women the balance of power. 
We give the American born citizen the ballot when he is 21 years 
of age. It might be well to forbid some foreigners the privilege 
of citizenship until they had served the same time on American 
soil and studied the spirit and scope of our institutions. The 
American woman of 21 could cast her vote and so upset and 
offset the occupation of the wire-pulling, office-seeking politicians 
who worship the un-American goddess of the ignorant, super- 
stitious, bloody and bigoted European immigrant. 

Women have political rights as well as home duties. Their 
presence at the caucus and polls will make them less of bear and 
beer gardens while their vote will hasten the millennium of God, 
home and native land. 

Woman suffrage will neither unsex her nor rob her of her 
loveliness. To drop her vote in the ballot box is surely as deli- 
cate and refined, intelligent and helpful as to make fancy work, 
play cards, entertain a dancing dude in the parlor or take auto 
joy-rides with Fido in her lap. 




158 NEW ZEALAND 



The world is what women make it. Men rule the present, 
but women rule the future. She may be independent, intelli- 
gent and sit by her brother's side on the high throne of political 
justice and equality and still be queen in home, society and 
church. 

Let women vote, and their enlarged worldly sphere will make 
them more womanly, wifely and worthy. 

BARMAIDS 

jFTEE the election returns we follov/ed some dry- 
throated men to a Grand looking hotel. Everything 
was in demand, so I asked for lemonade. On entering 
two of the three barmaids v/ere dancing, while a third 
was busy leaning over the bar with her face in a fellow's hands. 
I overheard some things that wouldn't look good in print. It's 
a short step here from the bar to the brothel. This was a com- 
mon sight all through N. Z. and Australia, a scandal to society, 
and a "bar" sinister on the Union Jack. The English barmaid 
should be barred from selling booze. 

MAKING HISTORY 

JEOPLE enjoy life here. They attend the race course, 
play golf in the suburbs, and in town the theatres and 
movies are crov/ded. The soldiers were always present, 
and if they were in uniform only paid half price and 
received double the attention of any one else. The thermometer 
was low and chilly, but the feeling of patriotism ran warm and 
high. N. Z. was giving men and money most generously, flags 
waved froih her buildings, and at home, theatre, church, lecture 
or on the streetcar women were knitting for the ''Tommies." 
Bands played, soldiers marched through the streets in regi- 
mentals or in plain everyday clothes, with the proud look 
and step of "England expects every man to do his duty." 

There was tumult in the Wellington city and the streets were 
rife with soldiers and citizens marching to the Parliament House. 
Falling in line with the crowd I learned that Prime Minister 
W. F. Massey, P. C, was about to read a telegram from the 
Government thanking the New Zealanders for their bravery at 
the Dardanelles. Though the Easter week holiday was recent 




NEW ZEALAND 159 



and the people had voted the day before for a half holiday on 
Friday and Saturday, a hurry-up half holiday was proclaimed 
that all might hear what the Government said. It was flags and 
music all the way, and people poured by hundreds from the 
streets up the hilly slope, until a mass of patriotic men and 
women reached to the steps. They were silent, determined and 
expectant. I caught the patriotic fever, and wanted to get some 
pictures and stand next to the speaker, Premier Massey. Telling 
the "bobbies" I was an "Ally" reporter and there for copy, I 
was permitted to climb the steps and stand by his Honor and 
staff. As he read the cablegram he took off his hat and the crowd 
did the same. I held mine on, not from disrespect, as appears in 
official photograph, but because the wind blew cold and I was un- 
willing to have it skate over my bald head and down into my 
neuralgic jaw. The crowd saw and understood, but if it had 
been Sydney, where Americans are so bitterly hated, the mob 
might have handed me something I didn't want. The cable- 
gram was received with deafening applause, flags waved, the 
men sang the national air and "Rule Britannia" which echoed 
from the hill to the waves of the harbor. I was ten thousand 
miles from home in a strange land and sang our "America" 
when they sang "God Save the King," for the melody is the 
same. There was the common inspiration of God, home and 
native land, and my soul heaved vast to heaven. 

THE NEW ZEALANDER 

ELLINGTON is New Zealand's capital, and has a popu- 
^^^^ lation of over 83,000 engaged in woolen mills, candle 
l^^^pl works, soap factories, foundries, cold storage and the 
^^^^d manufacture of pottery, boats, ropes and wax matches. 
New Zealand is well named. The land is new and full of 
zeal. Her citizens are rugged as the sCenery, and much warmer 
than the climate. Intellectually they are resourceful and 
capable, and politically they are so loyal to the Empire that N. Z. 
has been called the "Britain of the South." They are hard 
workers in pastoral, agricultural and mining pursuits, and are 
strong in body, mind and morals. The New Zealander appreci- 
ates the Scripture, "Godliness with contentment is great gain," 
and wants but little here below. He doesn't worry about wealth 
and fame, and so has plenty of time for wife and home. They are 



160 NEW ZEALAND 

reverent towards God, love their home, give their women polit- 
ical suffrage and their boys and girls healthful sports and good 
education, and believe their native land is the best and most 
beautiful the sun shines on. The visitor to their ports finds an 
export of mutton and an import of tourists. The only trust 
they believe in is God, and the only monopoly they tolerate is 
the mountain range which holds down much of their land. 

The people are slow, sleep late, go to office late, walk, 
eat, drink and run their horses slowly, have many holidays, 
and shut their shops early, but are sturdy, solvent, sincere and 
stable. 

MAORI FIGURES 

THE Maori race is almost run. From an estimated num- 
ber of 100,000 in 1840 the Maoris have decreased to 
43,000, according to the census of 1901, and who knows 
how few they are now? What a falling off, you 
countrymen of the North Island! Was it because you made 
progress in the European arts and embraced various forms of 
Protestant Christianity? Without caring a fig for dates on the 
chronological table, we know the Maoris are the Indian abo- 
rigines of 'Ney<r Zealand, and that while they belong to the Poly- 
nesian race their body and brain are markedly different. Their 
nearest kin are the Rarotongans 1,500 miles away. Maoris are 
blond or brunette. Some have straight black hair, others curly 
and frizzy. Some have a long arched nose like a Papuan and 
others possess the courtier features of the Melanesian. 

They have reliable traditions that when they came to 
N. Z. they found some Melanesians, whom they killed off or 
spared and married. Their language is musical and full of 
myths, proverbs, songs and traditions. They lived in well built 
huts or whares, and villages which they strongly fenced in 
against their enemy. They wore clothes and made mats that 
they obtained from the native flax. So artistic were they for 
beauty's curves that they tattooed the faces of their chiefs in 
circles. They vv^ere artists, but instead of painting on canvas 
or parchment painted on the live skin. They were great portrait 
painters, and when a chief died they embalmed his head and put 
it on the what-not for everybody to look at. 



NEW ZEALAND 161 



Nature left the Fijian clay in the oven till it was burned 
black but removed the Maori clay when it was a nice brown. 
The Maori, who was sturdy and symmetrical, has sunk to a low 
level, and the mighty warrior and man-eater has become a 
money-hunting mollycoddle. His mind shows respect for law 
and custom, but he is like a child, and if he wants a thing bad 
enough he will take a chair and climb into the closet to eat the 
forbidden jam. While the natives are gentle and affectionate 
in their way to their children and to the aged, they wear a chip 
of pride on their shoulders, and if you knock it off you may have 
to pick yourself up or your hat. They used to be furious fight- 
ers, but after the battle would kiss their enemy and make up 
with the man they had thoroughly licked. Intellectually they 
were like most other natives, with minds keen and quick to study 
nature and watch their enemy, still it was easy for Europeans 
and traders to frighten them into some superstitious spell. 

MORALS AND MUMMERY 

1 S USUAL, the woman was the ' ' lesser man ' ' and had to 
drudge and do the work of a dozen men. She was 
mistress, wife, mother, cook, bottle-washer and pant- 
maker. The men built houses and canoes, fished and 
hunted, and went out to rob and kill their enemies. Now they 
make laws instead of nets. It is claimed that Maori morality 
was very high and out of the reach of the ordinary villain. 
The girl was allowed some high flying before she was married. 
The marriage ceremony was a kind of hand-me-down and over, 
a give and take affair. When the man got her she had to live 
decently if she wanted to live at all. They were polytheists and 
not polygamists, and laid the emphasis on gods, not girls. Their 
deities were good or bad, and if one of them failed they could 
go the rounds and get another. Their ology was a mythology 
that is said to resemble that of the Greeks and Scandinavians. 
If it seemed a little flat they seasoned it with the flavor of the 
Hebrew story of creation and the flood, and the Greek New Testa- 
ment idea that the spirit left the dead body and went to another 
world, sad or glad, as it had been bad or good here. 

Women had no place in religious services. They were kept 
busy in a sewing society at home to make the men folks of the 
family decent and presentable at service, and to prepare a meal 




162 NEW ZEALAND 

for their lords after their exhausting prayers. Of course, there 
were religious ceremonies, and naturally the more the ceremony 
the less the religion. As usual, spectacular sanctity was in the 
hands of the priesthood, big hands, dirty hands and avaricious 
hands that kept the sacred office in the family and handed it 
down from grandfather to father and son. The poor natives 
were so buffaloed and befooled that they couldn't do anything 
much, big or small, without an omen (now it's Amen) and incan- 
tations of magical words chanted and enchanting. This is al- 
ways the prelude to the fugue and fugitive hearer. They believed 
in witchcraft and practiced it. A wizard called "Tohunga" had 
only to stick his tongue out, roll an eye and make a face to make 
a healthy man get up from the table sick and go out to the dog- 
house and die. 

TABU 

TlABU" was a magic word equal to our police enforced 
I sign, ''Keep off the grass." The word means to 

make a thing or person sacred. Everything a chief 
wore or had on was sacred, and if a sneak thief 



attempted to steal it he would commit a sin, and the big- 
ger the steal the greater the sin. Fear of "tabu" sv^^ung a 
bigger club than Moses' Ten Commandments. To break tabu 
would surely be found out and punished. The culprit might 
be made sick or killed outright by the offended god, have his 
people drive him out of the tribe or confiscate his property. If 
he managed to give them the slip' the gods would catch him and 
give him the worst punishment of all. This word tabu was a 
great word with the gods and the chief. If the chief wanted 
anything to eat, drink or wear, a hut to sleep in, a tree for a 
canoe, he had only to say "tabu," or put up a sign, and the 
coveted object was immediately handed over. This club was 
more potent than a warrior's club. Just think how it worked! 
Mr. Chief could come to your house and say, "Tabu — get out 
of here — this is mine — all the lunch and drink, your canoes, 
mats, wife and daughter thrown in. ' ' It was a great game, and 
I have known of religions this side of N. Z. and India to practice 
the same principle. Cortez used it, "Resolved that this world 
belongs to the saints ; resolved that we are the saints. ' ' 



NEW ZEALAND 163 



ON EASY STREET 




I HE Maori is well fixed today, owns land and rents it to 
the number of 7,000,000 acres. He lives in a modern 
honse unless he is in the tourist business, when he 
occupies a whare to show how next to Nature his people 
were. The native houses look like thatched wood tents, small 
and oblong in shape, are built of reeds or wood, the roof is 
pointed like a good greenback V upside down, or a generous cut 
of pie, and has long overhanging eaves. The front looks like a 
dog-house with a small door, the back like a smoke house with 
a little window, for there is no chimney. Cooking is done out 
doors in the hot springs. They have natural steam laundries 
but prefer dirty clothes to clean linen. They had good appe- 
tites and plenty to satisfy them. There were fish and vegetables, 
berries, bird and dog meat and pigs v/hen Capt. Cook came. 

Their wardrobe is limited to two garments, one wrapped 
around the waist and the other fastened across the chest under 
the right arm and over the left shoulder. In war times they; 
only wore a small loin cloth. Now some of the natives wear 
English clothes and as many and outlandish as they can pile 
on. The Maoris love greenstone as much as the Chinese like 
jade. Years ago they wore stone earrings and often pierced the 
nose and stuck a feather or piece of greenstone in it. Now 
the women chiefly wear greenstone "tikis," embryonic baby 
charms. 



MARKED FOR LIFE 







jHERE were two kinds of tattooing, the straight line 
variety found in the Polynesian islands, called "moko- 
kuri," and a spiral tattooing, original with the Maori, 
called after the inventor artist, ''Mata-ora." "People 
who dance must pay the fiddler," and their vanity was expen- 
sive. The skin was cut with sharp shells and a mixture of oil 
and soot was rubbed in. It locked devilish to the foreigner but 
was a mark of beauty among the natives. I suppose it was to 
make an otherwise mild looking man "fierce as ten furies." It 
was a brave warrior 's mark, and a brave man took literal pains, 
for the blood had to flow. The women were not to be outdone 
for they, too, had their beauty marks. They were tatooed on lips 



164 NEW ZEALAND 



and chin. It was black on the lips, because it was preferable to 
our red, and it gave them a stiff upper lip that enabled them 
more easily to hide their grief. Long before the paleface came 
to plot against them the natives had designs on themselves. 
They were thus marked for life, and some are remarkably proud 
of it, just as the sailors who carry their tattoo crosses, girls, 
ships and flags with them. 

PECULIARITIES 



THEIR canoes were often made of one log, 80 to 100 
feet long, open and carrying 150 men. There were no 
nails but plaited ropes of flax fibres, the bow was deco- 
rated with an ugly figurehead and the stern carved 
and built several feet high. The boat was usually paddled with 
paddles six to eight feet. Sometimes they had a flax mat sail 
painted black or red. 

Their music is made up of minor tones that sound flat, 
though their voices are sweet. Their "haka" dance was origin- 
ally performed by the women to encourage the warriors. The 
war dance was to get up steam to fight their enemies. Men made 
faces, raised their arms and clubs, beat the ground with their 
feet, kept time to their singing and worked themselves up to 
fever and fighting heat. They know how to talk and influence 
each other by voice, gesture and figure of speech. When the 
enemy attacked them the children ran to their mas and then 
went to their *^Pahs," that is, their fort or stronghold near the 
center of the population. Pah was always strongly palisaded 
and fenced. War was the Maori's game and he knew how to 
play it. His arms were of wood, bone and stone made into 
spears, clubs and axes. When the war was over he wore them 
as peace ornaments. 

They were cannibals and believed that if a brave man was 
killed and eaten his bravery would be theirs. The window of 
the soul known as the eye was always in demand to make one 
far-seeing. 

The Maori has fallen upon evil times. What his father 
labored hard for he gets for nothing. The old man worked, the 
children rest. The ancestors were active, and the descendants are 
lazy and degenerate. The native must work out his own salva- 
tion or be lost. Rev. Bennett, whom I frequently saw and talked 




NEW ZEALAND 165 



with, is urging his people to a higher and better life, a life found 
not only among the polite professions, but on the farm and in the 
sheep-runs. 

BIRDS OF PASSAGE 

JE left Auckland at night on the ''Makura." The dock 
and quay were guarded and my friends were at first 
denied the privilege of coming on board to say good- 
bye for fear they were enemies and might blow up the 
ship. After I blew up the young guard and proved my friends 
were good Americans, they came on, looked the boat over and 
went off. The "Makura" is a big and beautiful boat. Captain 
Phillips was big and his wife was beautiful and both of them 
musically and otherwise made it pleasant for us, especially for 
me, as they were willing to hear me play solos in exchange for 
their duets. 

Next morning we sailed by the north coast of N. Z., with its 
sweeping, russet and yellow headlands. Two albatrosses, not 
as large as those we had seen near Cape Horn, followed us, 
flying with strong swoops. Next to the American eagle and a 
Kentucky fried chicken it is the finest bird I ever saw. Though 
we did not stop we took on a bird of passage one night. It was 
a stormy petrel that flew in the saloon door. He was black 
and white and in fit dress for the evening dress of the pas- 
sengers. He had a fish-hook bill that he v/as bold enough to 
present to those who even touched him for coy attention. He 
said nothing about the stormy weather, as might be expected 
from his life on the ocean wave, but the captain's wife told 
me of the awful storm that had dashed in the ports and soaked 
the gilded ceiling and piano. It suggested our "Atua" ex- 
perience, and when she said it happened in Fiji I could readily 
understand it. We had a good passenger list of nice travelers, 
and with the list of the ship both rolled up pretty well. 

WATERSPOUT! 

T|HE following day the "Makura" was a real high 
I roller. She leaned and listed, and bowled and rolled 
on her side at an angle that made it impossible to 
walk or stand upright. The ocean didn't look rough, 
but it was a "following sea" that caused flower pots and ship 



166 NEW ZEALAND 

bric-a-brac to dance across the decks. Rain and more rain 
came from the low hanging clouds, and we were feeling damp 
and dreary v/hen someone yelled "Waterspout!" The only 
kind I knew was a fire-hose nozzle, wood gutter on barn or tin 
spout on the house. This waterspout was different, and ap- 
peared half a mile away in the tumbling ocean. It was a re- 
volving water-column made by the whirling atmosphere. It 
appeared to be coming towards us, then it stopped and seemed 
to tie the sea and sky. It took various shapes of a balloon, 
champagne glass, giant umbrella and mushroom, and then of 
a pillar that propped up the sky. I saw a pillar of fire by night 
at Kilauea, and here by day witnessed a pillar of water. It 
looked half a mile high, whirled at the top like a howling der- 
vish, boiled at its base, then broke and fell. Ten minutes later 
we sailed between two waterspouts, like pillars of Hercules. It 
is all right to view it from the deck of a big ship and in the 
distance, but to be in a small boat and have it clapped over you 
like a funnel with the water pouring down isn't funny but 
fearful. Now I have this to spout about and put in my spout 
collection of roofs, baths, geysers, whales and orators. 




168 AUSTRALIA 



SYDNEY HARBOR 

AM not too old or lazy to get up at sea to see the sun 
rise or set, two of the sublimest scenes in the world. 
For fear of missing something on nearing Sydney 
Heads I rushed up on deck with bath robe on body 
and lather on face. The rising sun, like a yellow arc-light, rose 
just above the horizon, poured gold over the water, copper hues 
over the Heads, and turned everything into a Turner sunrise. 
The harbor is the first thing you see, and you never hear the end 
of it. Undoubtedly it is a lovely land-locked place to imprison 
ships. There are bays that spread out like a beautiful girl's 
hand and hold your attention, bluffs crowned by modern castles 
that call your admiration, and caves, caverns, commerce and 
carriers to take you any and everywhere. To be honest, though 
I be condemned to live for an indefinite period with Judas, the 
harbor did not meet all I had read and heard of it. I have 
seen most of the world's most famed harbors, and while this is 
first in size it is second in beauty to Rio. Sydney's beautiful 
harbor has some barnyard names. My attention was attracted 
to the ''Sow and Pigs" and "Hen and Chickens" rock forma- 
tions. After you see the harbor Heads you find the big heads 
in the city. 

The first visitor was the health inspector who came aboard 
and bored us. We held out our hands and stuck out our 
tongues like Maori figure carvings, in appreciation of his 
friendly visit and welcome. As we were pulling in the "Ba- 
tavia" was pulling out for Java. It was covered with dark- 
faced and footed natives, and the Dutch island had made such 
an impression on me on a former visit that I wanted to accom- 
pany them. "We docked, and peering over the starboard side 
I saw a little craft that looked like a fiat-bottomed fish 
boat compared with the "Makura." It bore the strange name 
* ' Maitai. ' ' How are the mighty fallen ! Our worst fears were 
realized, for this was the boat everyone had warned us against, 
the boat we must take home. We made for her at once. She 
was getting fixed up, having a new coat of painty draperies and 
so forth. Making reservations for the three best first-class 
cabins, that we might feel respectable when she went down to 
Davy Jones' locker, and arranging to have our luggage put on 
so we could get it when we boarded her at Wellington later, 







IN SYDNEY HARBOR 



AUSTRALIA 




z *• 



COCKATOOS 



SYDNEY, AUGTRALIA 




AUSTRALIA 169 



we started up the wharf for a hansom rig to haul us up the hill, 
for Sydney streets "incline" to be steep. 

I went to the steamer office and was fortunate enough to 
find a Mr. Wright, who arranged our tickets for Melbourne, 
Tasmania and New Zealand. I did this, for I wanted to make 
my sailing as short as possible on the small "Maitai." 

SEEING SYDNEY 

Inasmuch as Sydney is a city of over 800,000 it was 
not expected that a stranger could find hotel accom- 
modation. Everybody and his wife come here Easter 
week to see the races, and we had the same jam experi- 
ence as in Auckland. Mr. Wright was the right man in the 
right place, for he took us to six hotels and boarding houses 
before he could settle us down. When he left he gave me a 
small tourist folder entitled, "How to Spend a Few Days in 
Sydney." I had learned how before reading it — trying to find 
suitable accommodation for a party of four in some central, 
suitable, reputable hotel. 

New Zealand paper was "waste paper" in the sense that 
Australia discounted it. I waited an hour to get a substantial 
answer to my "note," and what was less than due was given, 
as if it were a special favor for which I should be thankful. 
All the gold I had on leaving the bank was in my watch, teeth 
and spectacles. 

A, for art, was the beginning of my Sydney sightseeing. 
In the gallery were specimens of old artists on canvas, and 
plaster models whose originals I had seen elsewhere, but the 
work of the native artists, their scenes of bush, mountain and 
sea were delightful, and deserve the encouragement and finan- 
cial support from men of means who too often show meanness 
to home talent and buy something with a foreign name and 
label on it. 

St. Mary 's Cathedral is on College and WooUoomooloo streets. 
I was so tired trying to pronounce the name, and made such 
a hullabaloo over it that when I did enter the spacious build- 
ing I rested in the first seat, the last one by the door. I was 
unable to attend the service, but read a paragraph in the morn- 
ing paper vfhich said the church was anxious to have a slice 
taken out of Hyde Park that the Cathedral might be better 




170 AUSTRALIA 

seen from the main streets. The city fathers didn't see it that 
way. I think it will be a long day before the St. Patrick's steal 
of our New York city will ever be pulled off in one of England's 
Colonial possessions. 

LAUGHING JACKASS 

THE laughing jackass of the ''Maud" variety is in the 
U. S., of the tourist everywhere, but the amusing 
original is in Australia. We saw a stuffed one in the 
Museum. He looks like a great king-fisher, as might 
be expected in a country loyal to the crown, wears a gaudy suit 
of brown, black and white, relishes a diet of birds, reptiles and 
insects, and takes his peculiar name from a gurgling, giggling, 
guffawing laugh that is so regular at dawn and dusk he has 
been called the "settler's clock." He has the name and game 
and makes you laugh to look at or listen to him. Among other 
exhibits were native fish, skeletons, and sixty-four species of 
snakes, forty of them poisonous. They would have delighted old 
Artemus Ward for his "snaix" exhibition. 

ET CETERA 

jYDE PAEK was one of a number of parks I visited. 
Like London's it is a fine breathing spot, though only 
forty acres. It was very peaceful, but there was a 
time when it wouldn't have been safe for even Cap- 
tain Cook's statue that stands there. 

The National theatre, one of a dozen, presented a vaudeville 
bill v/hose mediocre monotony was only relieved by the boys who 
offered us ice-cream that proved to be coeoanut candy. I bit, 
but the bitter disappointment prepared me against further de- 
ception. 

Our boarding place was a landmark opposite a pretty park 
with flowers and statues. There was an odd motto in the bath- 
room that read, "Bath three pence for hot v/ater if you bathe 
more than twice." Whether it meant a day or a week I didn't 
know, but I had a good one morning and evening, and all the 
change I made was of clean clothes. The laundry was not easy 
of solution, even with soap and v/ater. It took an hour's excur- 
sion to hotels and misdirected places to learn they had all the 



AUSTRALIA 171 



dirt they could handle. Finally in despair I found a John China- 
man, related to a Chinaman John I had met in Canton, who 
agreed to do me "goodie washee quick and cheap," a promise 
he kept, as all good Chinamen do. 

BLACK OPALS 

AlUSTRALIA'S black opals are beautiful and hard to 
i get. They must be discovered on a bicycle, for no 
animal or auto can go into the desert interior where 
the precious stones have lived and garnered the heat 
of earth and sky. They are difficult to get when gotten, for our 
American jewelers have put such a fancy price on them that 
a stone which cost ten dollars a few years ago now sells for 
thirty. I saw one, so many parts of an ounce, that was worth 
so many pounds. It looked like a piece of frozen fire or block 
of imprisoned sunbeams. It is the most striking gem in the 
crown colony. The cracked form and polished surface give 
the opalescent colors. It must be cared for or it will lose its 
brilliancy, for it is not hard as a precious stone. I saw a black 
opal at the Panama Exposition worth $2,500. However at- 
tractive the stone, it is said to be unlucky, and I was afraid to 
buy it at that figure. 

STREET-CAR HOLDUP 

STREET-CAR took us to Balmain, and the conductor 
took our fares at every few intervals between every 
few zones. I stayed with him to the end. When the 
inspector looked at my handful of receipts and asked 
why I failed to get a through fare that would have cost me 
much less, I told him I didn't know the game and the con never 
told me. The streets are littered with these brown tickets that 
give them a very cheap literary appearance. However, I got 
even with him. After we seemed to have looped the loop of the 
Circular Quay and corkscrew streets with their stores, iron roofs, 
factories and wharves, it v/as near noon. The laborers crowded 
the car, and I gave my seat to a mother and baby and hung to 
the strap. Afterwards an old lady tried to signal the conductor 
to get off. He failed to see her, or was too busy taking fares, 
so that when she had been carried far beyond her destination 




172 AUSTRALIA 



and would be compelled to walk back in the broiling sun, my 
blood was up to fever heat. I reached above my head on the 
outside of the car and pulled the rope half a dozen times. The 
motorneer stopped, and the conductor yelled, ''"Who rang that 
bell?" I confessed I had and replied, "What's the matter with 
you? Can't you pay some attention to age and sex. You'd get 
fired if you did that in America." The old lady thanked me 
and got off the car. The working men, with hard hands and 
tender hearts, sided with me for the somebody's mother. The 
con scowled, pulled the bell, and we went on. When I got off 
the car he looked a few things he didn 't utter. The Yankee 
reader will remember that the cars are owned by the Govern- 
ment, and I might have been arrested. Parenthetically I may 
say here this same Government puts up the fares when you go 
to races, prize-fights, and even to church on Sunday. Thus 
both sinner and saint dig up special fares on special occasions. 
This was no war tax but a tax on the people who had been 
imposed on for some time. 

A FAST RACE 

I HE human race is race-mad in Sydney just as it is in 
New Zealand, not for the mettle of the horse but the 
money of the wager. From ten races we selected one, 
the A. J. C. at Eandwick. The race had been post- 
poned twice on account of rain and a heavy track, but this 
Saturday was bright, and the estimated number was 35,000, 
Among the crowd were "his Excellency, the Governor General, 
and Lady Helen Munro Ferguson, attended by Captain Fane," 
who fain would lend dignity to the occasion. The track was 
fresh and the lawn around the grandstand brilliant with red 
flowers. The people were of more interest to me than the 
sport and had just as much space in the papers the next day. 
It was a society affair, and the charming variety of dresses, 
summer gowns, fancy skirts, waists, hats, shoes and gloves fig- 
ured in the write-up. Many of the brave fellows who were 
accustomed to be present had gone to the war, and this lent a 
cloud of sadness to what otherwise was the gayest assembly of 
sport lovers we had ever seen. 

From this penned-up, lordly aristocracy "L" and I hurdled 
over the race track to where the common people were crowding 




AUSTRALIA 173 



around the "bookies." These literary gentlemen are not toler- 
ated in N. Z., but everything goes here except the horses. It's a 
fine exhibition, not of horse-racing but gaml3ling. Reed stood on 
a numbered pedestal, had his name on a bag, and told me he was 
the oldest ' ' bookie ' ' on the turf. Fearing this Reed might pierce 
my hand or prove a broken staff to lean on, I walked to the 
refreshment stand out of the boiling Sydney sun for a cooler. 
There was nothing but hot liquor drinks and people crowding 
to get them, and there were almost as many kinds of drinks as 
people. Men and women were fighting to get a drink before the 
next race, some to drown their loss and others to whet their 
courage. One poor specimen of a woman, dirty and bedraggled, 
holding a bottle in her hand from which she took copious 
swallows, kept running around offering me and others a drink, 
and pausing now and then to swear and make a maudlin speech. 
No officer arrested her, she had full suffrage to do as she pleased, 
and she did it. My refreshments were some California pears 
and real ice-cream packed in a thin flat box with a small tin 
spoon. This was a hot dog crowd, and I was mixing in a money- 
mad mob that swarmed around the "bookies." 

YOU BET 

JVERYBODY was gambling — it was in the air their 
ancestors had breathed when they staked all, even 
life, to discover gold. "Women and children, girls and 
boys crowded like bulls and bears in a wheat pit, as 
they backed their favorite horse. Old men and young who 
had pinched and saved all the week were risking their salary 
in dread and desire to make big money. Some good people have 
questioned the honesty of the "bookies" and totalisator, but 
there is no question about the demoralizing influence of gambling 
here. It's a common record of disappointment, dishonesty, 
forgery and breach of trust. Horse-racing, fast clothes, women 
and drink all go together. The pulpit periodically preaches 
against it, but in vain. The press occasionally becomes pious 
and writes platitudinous editorials, but the gambling game goes 
on unhindered, and often both press and pulpit take chances in 
church lotteries and philanthropic robber raffles. 

An Australian will bet any time, anywhere, with anybody 
on anything. It may be a running dog, flying pigeons, hurdling 




174 AUSTRALIA 

hares, spiders and flies, or whether a man or woman will be the 
first to turn a corner, or how many there may be in a ear. They 
will bet when the sick will get vv^eil or die, or if two people were 
drowning, which one would go down first. 

Poor press, pulpit and Parliament ! The pleasure for profit 
grows more fierce than ever as people become impoverished 
and dishonest. It is a case of money versus morals, and often 
most of what the poor work, sweat and swear for is spent on 
the track. The Government hurts and does not help, and is 
particeps criminis. Gambling down here is as much an estab- 
lished thing as the Church of England, and some of the churches 
are full of the same gambling spirit. 

As we left the track for the tram I met a drunken man and 
woman whose several strong drinks had inspired them with 
patriotism and profanity. The man knew he was vile, and dared 
gods and man by swearing at the Kaiser with a ''bloody" 
death. Unchecked by the passengers or conductor, the woman 
swore the whole German kingdom wasn't worth the death of a 
single English boy, and she was sorry she wasn't a man to go 
over the Rhine and challenge him to a duel. 

A PRIZE-FIGHT 

AlUSTRALIA is the pug's paradise. Prize-fights are as 
§ regular and more largely attended than prayer-meet- 
ings. The citizens believe more in the fight of fists 
than the fight of faith. One night "L" and I found 
our way to Eushcutters Bay Stadium to see a twenty-round con- 
test. Paying extra fare on the street-car and buying a sport- 
ing paper a week old, we purchased good seats near the ring. 
There were some fast preliminaries, after vv^hich came the main 
bout between Tom Cowler, the English heavyweight, and Les 
O'Donnell, the Australian. What v/as scheduled for twenty 
rounds was stopped in the sixth. It was a "bloody" affair of 
block and duck, a left to nose and hook to chin, heavy right rips 
and upper cuts, until a few jabs on the nose and mouth left 
O'Donnell in bad shape, dazed and cut. Finally the police 
jumped into the ring, interfered, and made them quit. It was 
butcher business. I almost felt as if I were at a bullfight in 
Madrid. Cowler won, and Corbett, who was there and admired 
him, later brought him over to America, but Gunboat Smith 



AUSTRALIA 



175 



gave him a boilermaker 's punch that was too much for him, 
and Cowler got all he gave at Sydney. 

Here I learned of Jess Willard's victory over Jack Johnson, 
Had Jess appeared the whole city would have given him an 
ovation, for when it comes to fxstic aft'airs Sydney is to the fight 
fan what Mecca is to a Mohammedan. They told me that when 
Jack Johnson was here he was welcomed as the conquering hero 
by tens of thousands, that the mob surged so that life and limb 
were in danger, and that he was wined and dined like a Black 
Prince. The w^elcome of a Pompey, Alexander and Caesar were 
revived. Crowds of men and women went wild, and the scene 
recalled the time long ago when multitudes came out in Apostolic 
times to see Peter that his passing shadow might fall on and 
overshadow some of them. Between St. Peter and slugger 
Jack's shadow I think the latter w^ould have been preferred as 
the darker of the two. Sydney gives the glad hand to the 
prize-fighter and the little n.nger to the poet, painter, politician 
and philosopher. I believe in the art of self-defense if it is 
manly and not vicious. A wealthy or wise man would be re- 
garded as a poor fool here unless he understood the manly art 
of self-defense. Prize-fighting is less brutal and fatal than foot- 
ball. Physically it does more to take bile from the liver than, 
doctor 's dope ; mentally it requires more of brain skill than of 
brute strength, and spiritually it makes a man his self-master, 
enforcing chastity, temperance and self-control. Paul went to 
the Isthmian prize-ring and said, "So fight I not as one that 
beateth the air." Just before he died he declared, "I have 
fought a good fight," and bade Timothy remember the earth 
was an arena with life-long struggle against the world, flesh and 
devil, that saints and angels were spectators, and God would 
crown the victor. 

"SOAK DER KAISER" 

USTEALIA believes in a ''white country," and it was 
but natural to find a White City, a pleasure park or 
Coney Island. It was v/hite with electric lights and 
pretty white girls sold American drinks and ice-cream. 
There were all the games of a Wonderland, but the most won- 
derful was called ''The Bombardment of Berlin" and "Soak 
Der Kaiser." The former was a miniature city, toy soldiers 





176 AUSTRALIA 

passed by, and you could show your skill and spleen by paying 
a shilling to take a shot at them. In the latter you paid a 
shilling for some baseballs, and when the crowned heads of 
Austria and Germany appeared in review the fun began. The 
Kaiser was the central target, men spent their strength and 
money, and fired away until they hit it. Then the crowd would 
applaud and yell "Soak Der Kaiser," and show its interest in 
the big war game across the sea. 

MANLY BEHAVIOR 

JUNDAY was no day of rest for us. We started early 
for the little church around the corner and met some 
men in a park who eyed us inquisitively. I asked one 
of them where the Cathedral was and he pointed 
around the corner and asked me for a shilling. I expected to 
be held up at the church but not before, so I paid him and 
didn't ask any more questions. Learning in Sydney is ex- 
pensive. 

The city is a picnicker's paradise. Land and sea invite you 
to come and go somewhere. There are lots of boat slips on the 
Circular Quay, where we slipped in a boat for Mosman Bay, one 
of Sydney's prettiest sights. Sky and water were in holiday 
attire, boat loads of happy passengers floated by, the harbor hills 
were full of beautiful residences sitting on the banks and hang- 
ing their gardens and summer houses like legs in the water. 

The tram took us to the Spit and took an extra Sunday fare 
that a fair Sunday passenger objected to. We crossed the Spit 
in a free punt, and then took another tram which pulled us up 
and down hill till we reached Manly. The Cardinal's palace and 
St. Patrick's college are situated here, but best of all, the beach, 
where religion and education are for the time being forgotten. 
And why not 1 Some of the finest beaches in the world are near 
Sydney, and Manly is one of the best with its hard, white sand. 
There was a fine surf where bathers were wading, swimming 
and sunning themselves in the sand. Here were costumes to 
take an artist's eye, of blooming girl bathers who wore no 
bloomers, and not much else to speak of. They sat and dug their 
pink toes in the sand and exposed arms and legs to sun, wind 
and wave. At Manly beach womanly forms are in great 
evidence. They lie around in the sand with their arms around 



I 




**» ^^ 



MANLY BEACH 



SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA 




THE BLUE MOUNTAINS 



AUSTRALIA 



AUSTRALIA 177 



their lovers, and make love in a way that would cause the 
Boardwalk beauties of Atlantic City to drovm themselves with 
envy. To the far left rose the bare headlands, to the right a 
rocky promontory that hugged the sea, while in front of me 
the waves madly dashed into each other's arms. The bay 
nestled in the arms of the shore, and all around me boys and 
girls were taking their cues from amorous Nature and improv- 
ing on her bare, hugging caresses. 

There was a walk with shady trees along the shore lined 
with chairs and benches. You might pay a penny to sit and 
watch the moving pictures. I noticed a loving couple sitting on 
a bench and tried to get their picture, but they moved to the 
beach and sat in the sand. I tried again, they moved once 
more and lay down on the sand and threw their arms around 
each other in true lover fashion. Then I caught them. "With 
salt sea all around it was very refreshing. Imagine the scene: 
high noon, thousands of spectators, and they blind to all but 
each other. This is the place to lie on the sand and sun your- 
self, dive through big green waves that billow and bounce in 
from the open sea, or sit under the shade and watch the fair 
bathers who show absence of restraint and clothes. 

TEA WITH COFFEE 

N THE evening we visited Chatswood and the castle of 
Col. Frank Coffee, and took tea. He is an American, 
looks like Mark Twain, and can write, as some of the 
Sydney editors know who lied about the U. S. A. In 
his city office, although hurried to get his mail off on sailing 
day, which is ''read letter" day, he gave me time, direction 
and information that was valuable. In his beautiful home he 
proved to be a prince of entertainers, showing us his estate, 
trees and flowers, taking us up into the tower and pointing 
out the country, bay and Sydney in the distance. I asked him 
what I could do for him, and all he wanted was to have me play 
the piano and give him some American flags. 

On the way to the ferry we saw a crippled horse and asked 
a man what the trouble was. He didn't know anything except 
that the animal had been that way for a long time. It made me 
sick, but the people were used to it and allowed the poor beast to 
limp and suffer instead of sending him to the veterinary or bone- 




178 AUSTRALIA 

yard. It reminded me of the human cripples I had seen the 
night before on the streets of Sydney — men and women on 
crutches and wooden legs, and a poor hunchback who played 
a flute in front of a hotel. Poor horse, poor people, handicapped 
in life's race! 

RELIGIOUS RELICS 

THE ferry ride was glorious. Sydney was lighted and 
loomed up from the distant water's edge like a mam- 
moth steamer. "We reached town in time to attend 
one more church service. This time it was St. Phillip 's 
Episcopal. It was the first church in the colony and the oldest 
place of Christian worship here, and named after the first 
governor of the territory. As we listened to the postlude after 
the service, a kind usher offered to show us some of the archives. 
Looking around we met the rector, the Eev. Canon Bellingham, 
M. A., who unlocked the wall safe and showed us a Bible and 
prayer book with the inscription, "Botany Bay, Dec. 14, 1786." 
They were brought out in the first fleet. So Vv^as the Communion 
service presented to the church by his majesty, George III. 
Americans are familiar with this George who didn't ''do it." 
When England lost the colonies in the Revolution she didn't 
know where to put the overflow of her jails, and decided to 
ship them to Australia. Captain Arthur Phillip was appointed 
governor of New South Wales in 1876. As commander of the 
' ' Sirius ' ' he hoisted his flag, weighed anchor and set sail. 

The first fleet arrived in Botany Bay January, 1786, and 
divine service was held on shipboard. But the bay had no 
shelter for ships, and Phillip went northward and found that 
Cook's Port Jackson had a flne harbor. Returning to Botany 
Bay he ordered the ships to sail there. Phillip came in the 
' ' Supply, ' ' landed at Sydney Cove, put up a flagstaff and floated 
the Union Jack. This point of land is at the entrance to the 
rivulet near the present site of the obelisk in Macquarie place. 
Next day was Sunday and service was held by Mr. Richard 
Johnson under a big tree in sight of the soldiers and convicts. 
So the Union Jack was furled with the Christian banner in this 
far away South land. 



AUSTRALIA 179 

Had I known the history of Governor Phillip before I left 
the church I would have offered a prayer for him then and there. 
I supposed it was named after St. Phillip of Bible name and 
not of governor fame. He may have been one of the "best" of 
Syaney's early governors, but they all were first class military 
despots, ruling the garrison, convicts and free white settlers 
with an iron hand and a heart that lacked the love of the Bible 
they had brought over in the ship. 

We adjourned from the church to the rectory where the 
canon showed us his living room and library and gave us plans 
and advice about seeing the Blue Mountains next day. He 
showed an interest in my work and asked me to pray for him 
and his motherless children. The little visit did me more soul 
good than all the day's services and sermons. 

BLUE MOUNTAINS 

T WAS blue Monday and a fitting time to start for the 
Blue Mountains. We went a little early because the 
depot is far out. We couldn't get a ticket by phone, 
they said, because it was a democratic form of govern- 
ment. I found, to my sorrow, it was because of the poor phone 
system. On our way we noticed the littered condition of the 
streets. They seemed struck with leprosy or covered with chalky 
rain. It was the muss and mess of the tram tickets. ]\Iultiply 
one ride by half a dozen transfers, this by ten thousand, 
unload these scraps of paper along the way, and you get a very 
untidy and common look to the royal-named streets. The people 
are careless, the sweeps must be overworked, and a thousand 
goats could find food and to spare. It was interesting to watch 
the crowds coming back after their week-end Sunday. They 
were all smiles, dressed in caps and flat hats, and were brown, 
happy and tired. 

Our train was made up and we made off for Katoomba, 
nearly 70 miles distant and a climb of 3,000 feet. At 
one of the stations a small boy wanted to sell me some grapes, 
which with cockney accent he pronounced "gripes," but I felt 
sure I would get some in bunches before we went much higher, 
I gave him a penny for his kind thought. 

At Katoomba, which is not a cat's tomb, the Grovernment 
tourist agency wanted something over a pound apiece to jolt 
us over the rocky roads. We found a boy with his own rig who 




180 AUSTRALIA 



offered to do it for less. So we spent tlie difference in ballasting 
our stomachs with a hot dinner. On the way to the falls we 
passed stores and houses, and a cart of sheep hides that was 
mired, for sheep are most admired next to the scenery. "We 
jumped out and walked down and down and on and on to see 
the waterfalls. There was plenty of chance for falls, but the 
drought gave us grief and pain for promised joy. There wasn't 
water enough to give a dozen sheep a good drink. I am sure 
my perspiration ran faster and further than the advertised 
cascade. At a fat man's personal disadvantage I went to points 
of vantage where I finally obtained a fine view of the whole 
Jamieson valley. There were bare cliffs, fern-clad rocks, ruined 
castle with a bluebeard of eucalyptus, a solitary mountain, a 
sad Orphan rock, the three weird Sisters and the whole gor- 
geous view 540 feet below. Tree and rock, sunshine and sombre 
appearance, fern and fall make a pretty picture that requires 
a small frame compared with our Grand Canyon and Yosemite. 
The gorges were gullies, and the falls and cascades a hand- 
sprinkler compared to ours. 

Lured by the lurid guide-book description we urged our 
driver on to Leura, a mile away. Once he paused, I asked 
him if it was to rest the horses, and he replied that he had 
stopped for me to see the scenery, I asked him where it was, 
and he whipped up his team, and there was a horse laugh on 
both of us. He drew rein at Leura and we hopped out and made 
for the main lookout point just beyond the Shelter Shed, 
where we looked, with gaping mouths, at the lovely Leura gap 
and the Bridal Veil falls that had blown away. Since I v/as a 
married man it was unnecessary to visit the Bride and Bride- 
groom's cave, Lover's Nook or "Weeping Eock. I was very 
anxious to see the amphitheatre, and holding an empty beer 
bottle to my eye, took in the sweep of splendid scenery. There 
was a big bowl in the cliffs 600 feet deep, festooned to the top 
with small and stately trees and whole farms of ferns and 
foliage. The light and dark blue of the forests, with the silver 
white of falling spray and the rich yellow color of cliffs, makes 
a beautiful picture a kodak can only suggest. 

After this we went to Wentworth through the ''eternal 
gum" blue bush forests, and by the* ''eternal" corrugated iron 
roof houses whose gutters were connected by pipes that led into 



AUSTRALIA 181 



big iron cisterns. Water is scarce, and when it rains they tank 
up on it. Wentworth was an explorer, and the place is named 
after him because he went and found things that are worth 
seeing. We saw the 600-foot gorge, the climbing cliffs, splashing 
streams and running rivers. It seems Nature got her colors 
wrongly mixed here for instead of green leaves and foliage all is 
blue, and distance is not necessary to robe the mountain in its 
azure hue. 

If you recall your geology you know that this old Blue 
Mountain scenery of New South Wales was not forged into fan- 
tastic shape by Vulcan but by water nymphs. Centuries of wind 
and snow chiselling have made the statuary and architecture of 
the Blue Mountain gallery. The horses were tired, the driver 
thirsty, and we were hungry, and entering town we raided the 
first chop house and ate meat pies to our own and the owner's 
satisfaction. We were full and so was the train. There was no 
room except in a coach marked "Ladies." As I was a ladies* 
man, and ladies were in our party, we took possession, and re- 
solved to fall dead asleep before anyone should molest us or 
drive us out. 

SYDNEY AFTER DARK 

JINCE this had been an unusually quiet day, ''L" and 
I went sight-seeing and sound-hearing. The latter 
was more interesting. Just as we were entering a 
vaudeville house we heard "soul-animating strains" 
across the street. The waves of harmony poured into our ears 
and the undertow tones dragged us across to the big hall. I 
said to the gentleman at the door, ' ' Excuse me, this is heavenly, 
what does it cost to get in? He said, "Nothing." It was a 
private rehearsal of the Royal Philharmonic Society that was 
to give a war benefit. He took us in, gave us a seat, and the 
work of leader and chorus was excellent. After the rehearsal 
my musical friend gave me a program of the society, spoke of its 
aims and members, and informed me that Melba had sung with 
them and had helped them raise a big charity fund for the Red 
Cross. He insisted it was Sydney and not Melbourne that had 
been first to appreciate and bring out the famous diva. 

From the Blue Mountains of the morning we went to the 
Deep Purple underworld. Destitution and Prostitution were 




182 AUSTRALIA 



twin street walkers. Tough looking gangs of boys stood on the 
corners anxious to fight, and drunken men and women were more 
numerous than in the slums of Dublin and London. In this 
City of Dreadful Night tough girls of tender age hold up 
strangers, soldiers and sailors at the street corners. All this 
and more was on the main street. To get more color we took 
a tram and asked an English conductor from London where 
we were to go to see the sights. He spoke of the "Larrikins," 
and of thugs who would pick a fight, and when one of them 
had knocked you dov/n the rest jumped on you and kicked you 
in the face or body; of dangerous haunts in leading thor- 
oughfares where the demi-monde were stationed on wet and 
dry nights, and of corners where one could be slugged for a 
sixpence. He finished at the end of his run by warning us to 
keep on the main and lighted streets. "We did, for whether it 
was day or night we v/ere stared at and scowled at because we 
were Americans and hadn't joined the Allies. God made Syd- 
ney harbor but the devil made the city. There are some cities 
without slums, but Sydney in spots looks like a slum v/ithout a 
city. It would be a good thing for Sydney if she could force 
these thugs to the ba,ttle front. They could soon learn to aim 
and fire, for there are shooting galleries all over town, and one 
in particular where I tried my skill. It looked like a big sewer 
pipe with a wood collar at one end. Ally flags were painted 
over it with a soldier on either side. As this was an English 
target I tried to hit the bull 's eye, but only wasted my pennies 
and ammunition. 

Before we went to bed we passed a large, well-lighted hall 
where hundreds were singing church tunes. It was such a nov- 
elty we went in and found a Methodist service whose earnest 
workers were planning and praying to offset the works of the 
devil in Sydney. 



T 



YANKEEPHOBIA 

HE Sydney press is of great size and little sentiment, 
big me and little you, with few items about the U. S. 
except to roast us, or of anything else that does not 
relate to Great Britain. The editorials v/ere savage 
against President Wilson for his congratulatory letter to the 
Kaiser on the latter 's birthday and for the smallness of our 
contribution to the Belgian fund. Anti-U. S. feeling and preju- 



AUSTRALIA 183 

dice were shown when the Australian cricket players refused 
to play at Bowling Green until an American flag, that was 
flying on the cricket field, had been hauled down, though other 
neutral flags v/ere allowed. "Truth," printed in Sydney, is 
not allowed in N. Z., because it shows things up pretty "strong." 
War and the races occupy the most prominent space in the 
papers. It looks as if it paid best to be the sporting editor. 
As a rule the papers seemed to have most of our worst and little 
of our best in journalism. It is a difficult matter to find any 
paper newsy, truthful. Christian, fair, fearless and free. Though 
the Australian press didn't like America, it took a fancy to our 
old cuts of 'Frisco earthquake ruins and Mellen's baby food 
ads and faked them as true pictures of the horrible ruin and 
cruel destitution at the front. 

BOTANY BAY 

FIVE-MILE trip by tram brought us to Botany Bay. 
It is now a picnic resort, though originally intended 
for a penal settlement. In 1787 the British govern- 
ment sent Commodore Phillip here, but the bay wasn't 
very deep for ships, and for fear the convicts would have a 
walkaway he went further north and selected a more suitable 
site at Port Jackson. Although the convicts were here but a 
year Botany Bay has long been the name for all convict settle- 
ments. Sir Joseph, of the expedition, gave the name because 
of the large number of shrubs and beautiful flowers found in 
contrast to the other general barrenness. I didn't see many 
flowers, and it has been denied that botany had anything to do 
with the name of the place. Cook wrote a log on it, and Southey 
some eclogues. Perhaps the only flowers were the convicts, 
"The Flowers of Evil" kind Baudelaire refers to in his poems. 
Cook came to Botany Bay, planted his foot and the Union 
Jack on its soil, and Phillip planted a convict colony of 756, of 
whom 192 were women. These Pilgrim fathers and mothers did 
not come of their free will, like ours in New England, yet like 
them, they came on account of their * ' convictions. ' ' The officers 
of the fleet brought everything but common sense. The one 
Bible I saw at St. Phillip's church was packed in with 8,000 
fish hooks, 700 gimlets, 700 steel spades, 3 snuffers and 3 dozen 
flat iron candlesticks. They forgot the cartridges for the ma- 
riners' muskets and the clothes for the women. There were no 




184 AUSTRALIA 



superintendents to keep the convicts in order, and no carpenters, 
bricklayers, farmers or teachers. For religious instruction Rev. 
Eichard Johnson was accepted, and the two Roman Catholic 
priests who wanted to come, "because half the number of con- 
victs belonged to their church," were refused. Some things 
brought to the colony had better been left at home. It didn't 
grow very rapidly, but the rabbit race did. The 5 rabbits 
brought over multiplied ad infinitum, and Australia has vainly 
tried to exterminate them. We saw them all along the railroads. 
The population of Australia is only 5,000,000, and not one 
of them carries a rabbit's foot for good luck, so fiercely do they 
hate the long-eared bunny. Australia is an overgrown island. 
It was first discovered on a chart, settled by convicts and popu- 
lated by rabbits. 

Cook came here in 1770, Phillip dropped anchor here 18 
years later, and La Perouse came 6 days after Phillip. Even 
if he had come earlier it would not have been a French posses- 
sion, because he didn't come to make a settlement. 

La Perouse was a famous French navigator sent by his 
government, in the ''Boussole" and * ' Astrolobe, " on a voyage 
of discovery around the world. "When he found the British in 
possession of Botany Bay he left, and was later wrecked among 
the coral and volcanic islands of Santa Cruz. A graceful monu- 
mental shaft has been erected at Botany Bay by the French to 
his memory. "L" took a picture of it, and attempting to take 
one of a slab fenced in with iron spikes, climbed up, slipped, 
and was almost impaled. I turned pale at the thought that I 
might have been compelled to build another monument. 

CAPTAIN COOK 

[URNS was our boatman who ferried us in a gas launch 
from La Perouse to Kurnell on the south side of the 
bay. He was a boy in Chicago and carried water 
during the big fire. Now he carries passengers. I 
asked him if he didn't want to go back to America. He said he 
couldn't because he was held by a "Dutch anchor," the Aus- 
tralian for wife. Landed on the other side, I walked down the 
wharf and up the sward to the monument erected to Captain 
Cook who tried to land here April 28, 1770. He had to lay over 
a day on account of the high surf, and proved to be a good 




AUSTRALIA 185 



Christian Endeavorer, for the next day, Sunday, his ship the 
"Endeavour" anchored at 3 P. M. in a place which he called 
Sting-ray Harbor. 

Dear old Captain Cook! From the time I left Hawaii, 
where he was killed, I had followed in his wake in the South 
Seas, as I had the course of Columbus in the West Indies. Born 
in 1728, the son of a farmer, he knew the water as his father 
did the land, and during his three voyages discovered lands and 
sunny seas so accurately that he, more than any one else, has 
put the Pacific and Antarctic oceans on the map of definite 
knowledge. He was said to have been fair and honest with 
his own men and square to the natives he met, for they soon 
learned to love him. The second time he went to Hawaii to 
recover a stolen boat, he got in wrong with the natives and was 
clubbed and stabbed to death. Another version of his death is 
that the lowly natives thought he was their long-lost god Lono. 
He didn't deny it, because of the patronage and power it gave 
him. During a row, when hundreds of angry savages sur- 
rounded him and his comrades, he was hurt and set up a howl. 
That was enough. Pain proved him to be mortal, and with 
angry disappointment they rushed up and killed him, stripped 
his flesh from the bones and burned all of it except nine pounds 
which they sent to the ship. His heart was hung up in a grass 
hut where three meat-hungry children, thinking it was a dog's 
heart, made a hearty meal of it. Later a few of his bones were 
found and buried in the sea by some of the ship's officers. 
Sic transit gloria mundi. The greatest Cook who ever lived 
was killed, roasted and eaten by hungry savages. *'To what 
base uses may we return, Horatio." 

At Botany Bay I straddled the rocks where tradition says 
the bow of Cook's ship first touched. I balanced with my 
umbrella, slipped, and wet my feet. I am sure Captain Cook 
landed more gracefully. I was a mere landlubber. 

^__^__^^^ AUSTRALIAN ABORIGINES 

TIHE first Australian aborigine I saw stood on the dock 
I fishing. He was clad in pants, shirt and hat, like any 
other sensible descendant of Isaac "Walton. He fol- 
lowed me as I walked towards the Government abo- 
riginal reservation and warned me I would be shot if I took 
pictures, for the soldiers were target-shooting and didn't like 



186 AUSTRALIA 

visitors with kodaks. On this reservation the^ aborigines are 
supposed to be well taken care of, but I found complaint of leaky 
iron roofs, and one old woman without mental reservation said 
a bullet had just missed her and she did not think much of the 
soldiers or the government. The descendants of the vigorous 
tribe that hunted and fished around Sydney have been placed 
here at La Perouse. 

The Australian aborigine has more than 57 varieties of 
habits and character. He is positive and negative in all the vices 
and virtues ; a friend and foe ; an honest thief and a truthful 
liar. He courts his wife with a club and is faithful until 
death. Fearless in battle, he is fearful of ghosts. He can 
make and use a miraculous boomerang, but can not make a 
tea-kettle or count up the number of minutes required to boil 
his dinner. These Sinbads of the sea carry their own vices plus 
the white man's wickedness. Life's story classes them in the 
tragedy and not the comedy class. 

A BLACK ANGEL 

WALKED up hill to the Australian Aboriginal Mis- 
sion, knocked at the door and was met by a soft-voiced, 
sweet-faced woman. She was Miss Baker, daughter 
of the famous missionary, Thomas Baker, the brave, 
loving, intelligent and devoted man who sought to win the 
Fijians at Navosa to Christianity and civilization. He was 
cruelly betrayed by a chief he had befriended, and under the 
guise of safe conduct was cut down like an ox by a steel battle 
axe when he raised his hand to speak to the savages. Miss 
Baker took us in the little chapel room with its seats, black- 
boards, models and desks where the natives worship. Then she 
directed us towards a hut where lived an old aborigine called 
the "Black Angel." She was a full-blooded princess. She sat 
on the grass in the shade of the gate that opened into the little 
flower yard. There was a path to the door that opened into a 
small room. In one end there was a small stove and kitchen and 
in the other a simple bed. The walls were covered with Scrip- 
ture mottoes, and a Bible lay on the tiny table. She was in 
trouble. Her husband had gone off on a drunk and was un- 
faithful, yet she was praying for him and believed he would 
come back. I quoted the words, ''Let not your heart be trou- 
bled." Her wrinkled lips moved, her old eyes filled with tears. 







ABORIGINAL WOMAN 



AUSTRALIA 




DANCING ABORIGINE WITH BOOMERANG 

LA PEROUSE, AUSTRALIA 



AUSTRALIA 187 



and she said, ''Say, that's my verse — I think of it all the time." 
Then she pointed to the wall where it stood out in a big motto. 
Her poverty was evident. I gave her some money and she went 
to a little tin box and opened it. It was empty. She con- 
fessed she had told the Lord that very morning she was hungry, 
had asked for daily bread and knew He would send it. It was 
this black, gray-haired, wrinkled-faced princess whom the late 
Doctor Guinness of London had visited and named the "Black 
Angel." As the angels were God-sent messengers to Moses and 
David, this old woman had proved to be to others. She came 
into the bush one day to gather sticks for a fire. The trees and 
bush grew thick and wild. There were strange insects and 
snakes on the ground, and no sound except the call of wild 
birds. Looking up she saw an old man who was sitting on a 
big stone in the grass under a tree. He looked so sad she walked 
up to him, shabby and plain as she was, and with a gentle voice 
said, ''Let not your heart be troubled." It was comfort and 
cheer, and made him know that Christianity can put a kind, 
helpful spirit in the heart of a poor black woman of the Aus- 
tralian bush whose people have long been wandering savages. 

BOOMERANGS 

|y FISHER BOY now appeared as guide. He took me 
^^^^ to huts where natives were making little knit covers, 
^^^^ edged with shells, for water bottles and milk jugs, as 
fflSSffrg^ well as fans and necklaces. I met an old grandma. 
Her hands were idle, but her tongue was busy scolding the Gov- 
ernment for the poor care she received. Her old man came up 
and I offered him some money to pose for a picture. They both 
stood, and then the man grew young, went through a native 
dance, and " L " caught him in the very act. The boy guide saw' 
we were out for fun, and had reserved the best for the last. 
He produced two boomerangs he had made and was proud of, 
for his name was written on them. He handed me one to 
throw. It was shaped like an eucalyptus leaf, which may have 
suggested the shape and principle of the boomerang as it flut- 
tered in the wind from the tree to the ground. He told me 
how to grasp and throw it. It was light, and I tried and 
succeeded as well as if I had thrown a bone at a dog and missed 
him. Then he tried and performed miracles. It went up, down 
and around, sailed like a bird far away and came back and 




188 AUSTPALIA 

nestled at his feet. He smiled, said it was easy now, but he had 
practiced on it all his life. I looked at him and it in wonder, 
paid him two shillings for the boomerang as a souvenir, and 
went away thinking hov/ much smarter some aborigines are than 
their civilized brothers. Here was a new illustration for a ser- 
mon. Sin and slander are boom^erangs that we may throw at 
others, but they will return whence they came. The Australians 
use the boomerang to hunt with in the bush — we use it as a 
figure of speech. 

A boomerang is a piece of hard wood bent into a curve. 
It is in the shape of a scimitar and, like it, can cut off the head of 
bird or beast and inflict a fatal wound. It is two feet long, flat 
on one side and curved on the other. The boy took it by the 
end, with the bulging, curved side turned down, and threw it 
as if he were about to hit som,ething 15 feet away. It didn't go 
forward and down, as I expected, but whirled round and round 
and rose in a curved line to a great height, then it began to 
fly back again over his head and fell just back of his heels. He 
did it without knowing the philosophy; I couldn't do it but 
knew the reason, the motion being produced by the action of 
the air on the curved bulging side of the boomerang. 

TALE OF A KANGAROO 

[HE thing to do, if you wish to see the kangaroo, is 
to stop at the Zoo, for he doesn't run all over city and 
country as you expect him to, and the same is true of 
the emu and cockatoo. I had seen a kangaroo court 
before, but in the Zoo found a kangaroo courting. He looks 
like a large overgrown rat. I saw a giant one that stood up seven 
feet on his hind legs, balanced by his big tail behind and small 
legs before. He was on the jump most of the time. If he 
were hard pressed I suppose he could jump from ten to twenty 
feet in one leap. In the open they are said to outdistance the 
fastest dog. They feed on herbs and are a whole circus in 
themselves. The one that interested me most was a mama 
kangaroo who held her baby in a pouch. Here the little fellow 
fed and rested, and stuck out his head as if to say it was a 
better house than I lived in, or any bird in nest of a tree. The 
mother felt proud and brought him over where we could see 
him, and then gave him a baby jumper ride. The kangaroo 
is athletic, a vegetarian by diet, in religion a Holy Jumper, in 



# n^ 



AUSTRALIA 189 

society belongs to tlie Marsupial Order, and commercially is 
valued for his hide and flesh. The tail of a kangaroo is famous in 
song and story, operas are written about him and courts named 
after him. He is a true Australian aborigine, and has done 
more than anything else to make his country famous. Next to 
the flea he holds the record for long-distance jumping. Physic- 
ally he has a long, thick, tapering tail that helps support his 
body when he stands upright. His hind legs are long and have 
strong feet and four toes, with a clawed big toe that can kick 
an awful cut. His little forelegs have five fingers with strong, 
unmanicured claws. His head is small, nose pointed, and he 
has soft, woolly fur. Unless teased he is a mild, timid, social 
animal, but when cornered he can put up a good fight. Whether 
he is called a ''great," "tree," "wallaby" or "rat" kangaroo, 
he is one of the most picturesque inhabitants of Australia. He is 
a good ad, appears on coats of arms and souvenirs, and in everj^ 
way is fitted to lead the march in the motto, "Advance, Aus- 
tralia. ' ' 

A DARKLESS DOG 

T|HE dingo is another odd citizen. I was introduced to 
I him, and he is thought to have been introduced into 
Australia many years ago by fierce immigrants from 
islands to the North. At college we used to sing "Bin- 
go ' ' was his name, here it is dingo. Borneo has its wild man and 
Australia its wild dog dingo that looks like a fox, yet is larger 
and stronger. Instead of baying the moon he is accustomed 
to go out at night and hunt sheep, and is hunted to death. 
When he is in close quarters he doggedly shams death until 
left for dead, then takes to his heels. Dingo was quiet in 
his wild and native state, amusing himself with occasional 
dismal howls, but when he was caught and placed in a cage 
he learned to bark whether Barkis was willin' or not, and can 
give you a fine barcarolle. He lives a dog's life, and has his 
day every day and night. He looks like an Esquimau dog that 
has just returned from the barber shop with a haircut. Put 
a ding dong bell on his neck and he would run for pussy in the 
well or anywhere else. 



190 AUSTRALIA 



EMU AND COCKATOO 

TJHE emu is immortalized by our Bret Harte as a "sin- 
j gular bird with a manner absurd." He trots around 
^^MS|| with his head on the ground or erects it quite out of 
^^^^^ ■ 8 view. The emu is a bird that runs instead of flies. The she 
bird wears the pants, is larger, makes more noise, is more anxious 
to fight than her old man, and struts proudly about covered 
with feathers that make my lady 's best hat look very cheap. She 
grows up five feet, has a strong leg and can kick like a mule. 
While there are only three toes to a foot, each one of them has 
short claws. Unlike the cassowaries the emus wear no helmets, 
and they not only feather their nest but their heads and necks. 
She is a gay girl, lays the eggs, but makes her hubby stay home 
and hatch them out while she goes to her neighbors to visit and 
gossip, a too frequent feminine trait. 

Not only was there a kangaroo and emu but a cockatoo. He 
belongs to the parrot family, but is more pompous and wears 
a pompadour. He wears feathers instead of a coat of arms 
and his crest is red, yellow and black. None of them are crest- 
fallen. The Zoo was large and well stocked, but the city had 
planned larger and better quarters elsewhere and moving day 
was not far away. 

INTERCESSION 




T. ANDREW'S CATHEDRAL is a sermon in stone, 
and that 's all the preaching I received in this big, beau- 
tiful edifice. Still, we entered the ever open door in 
the afternoon, for special services were being held here 
for the success of the Allies' cause. I saw a sign hanging by 
the inner door, and thinking it would make a good picture 
tiptoed in, took it off the nail, came out and held it in the sun. 
It read: 

St. Andrew's Cathedral, Sydney 

A United 

Intercesion Service 

In connection with the 

Present War 

Will be held in the Cathedral at 

Midday, 1 to 2 P. M., on 



AUSTRALIA 191 

Next Friday. 
All are invited. A. E. Talbot, Dean of Sydney. 
Would that intercession had brought cessation at the next 
service ! 

We hayseeds went to Farmer's to tea on the roof garden 
of a big store. The party was very select and I saw some 
high-up society. Like the New Yorkers the Sydneyites love to 
get away from business and meet a pretty friend, eat lunch, 
drink tea, and make a date to see her later. 

MY LORD! 



THE Town Hall is a hall befitting the town. The Yankee 
must give credit to English official buildings and the 
big organs with the free concerts. Before leaving I 
was anxious to pay my respects to the mayor, for I 
felt indebted to Sydney for a fine visit. Though it was late for 
a formal call, I sent my card in, and was told his Excellency 
was just leaving for a social appointment. I was disappointed 
and started for the "lift." Just then an intelligent, well- 
dressed gentlemen in silk hat and roses, accompanied by some 
ladies, appeared. I stepped to one side. The ladies entered 
the "lift," and the gentleman insisted I should precede him. 
Thanking him. I said I was very sorry I could not see his Honor 
the Mayor. He smiled and said, "Well, you do see him, and if 
you are the American who sent in his card I am sorry I couldn't 
see you, because I am late now, but come again." Before we 
reached the ground floor I managed to say everything I in- 
tended to, and called it a call. Perhaps this was the first time 
one of his American cousins had ever introduced himself in a 
"lift" and had so delightful and uplifting an interview. But 
much can take place in a short time and space. Even in religion 
"Between the saddle and the ground, salvation sought is sal- 
vation found." 

So long, Sydney, with all thy splendor, sport, sin and sor- 
row, I felt as the train pulled out for Melbourne. ' ' I am sorry 
to leave you," I said aloud and sincerely. A middle-aged 
gentleman overheard me and replied, "I am glad to hear you 
say that, I live here." Later the brakeman asked me if I knew 
who the gentleman was. I told him no and he answered, ' ' That 
was Sir Albert Gould, M. P." That name sounded good to me. 



192 AUSTRALIA 

and shortly afterwards I ploughed through the crowd and found 
him in the lounging ear. He came over to my seat, kindly told 
me many things I wanted to know about the Government, gave 
me his card, told me where I could meet him at Melbourne, and 
offered to send me reports and a card that would introduce me 
into the M. P. buildings and to a seat at its sessions. I had many 
times said "Sir," and "Yes, sir," but this was a different sir, 
an M. P. sir, and I found his M. P. meant ' ' most polite, " " most 
pleasant." 

THE BROAD AND NARROW WAY 



I *"'i"'*^ i -^-^ sleeper sections ran one way and the train another. 
i& i The strap, intended to help you mount the top berth, 
^^^^1 was necessary to hold you in all night. It was a rough- 
1^^^^^ rider trip in the dust. The car was divided into three 
sections, and there was an evidence of modesty and security 
quite refreshing. The altogether promenade of our Pullman 
was wanting. One compartment was for married couples, an- 
other for single ladies, and a third for single gentlemen. An 
official woke us up before sunrise, not because we were near our 
destination, but to change cars from a narrow to a broad gauge. 
Sydney in New South Wales and Melbourne in Victoria are 
jealous of each other, have different trains of thought, and 
can't agree to a continuous road between the cities where the 
only brake should be on the trucks. So it is narrow from Sydney 
to Albury and broad from there to Melbourne, although both 
cities are very "narrow" and not "broad" in not being able to 
get together. The station was Albury. "Why not call it "All 
bury" and cover up their differences? We had this same diffi- 
culty in South America near the border of Bolivia and Chile, 
where the population is largely made up of fighters and bone- 
heads. I didn't expect it here, although I had heard of it. 
What a commentary on rivalry, and with no chance to sing 
"Blest be the railroad tie that binds." Are Victoria and New 
South Wales afraid they may transport troops against each other ? 
Suppose a common enemy should come, what then ? These cities 
are in the same country but in different states, just as Chicago 
and Milwaukee are. Imagine an American being jerked out of 
a sound sleep to change trains between Wisconsin and Illinois 
just because each state had a different gauge. Australians should 



AUSTRALIA 193 



have a uniform track, and if it costs a lot of money let them 
divide the debt. We changed cars, but if they were attacked 
by the enemy there might be no time to change cars. Australia 
claims to be so much better than U. S. that at the risk of 
being called ungracious and uncomplimentary I think this nar- 
row gauge shows a narrow, one-sided policy. In this sheep-run 
country some muttonhead officials must have put this railroad 
plan through. 

At the station I noticed a sack suspended from the ceiling. 
It looked like a horse's oat-bag and was filled with drinking 
water. This was the way they cool it instead of packing it with 
ice. The trouble was there was drought, water was scarce 
everywhere, and this was the only way it came down from above. 

A NEW MENU 

S WB stepped on to the broad-gauge Victorian railway 
we met a conductor who had put "Reserved" cards in 
the vacant seats, though there was no one to occupy 
them. We thought we would, and did, and he looked 
as though he would eat us up until I gave him a tip, and he 
smiled. Later I went into the diner, and the best thing on the 
menu card was, "Employees are strictly forbidden under pen- 
alty of dismissal to accept tips." When I thought of them and 
the families dependent on them I didn't have the heart to make 
them lose their position, and refrained from tipping them. Such 
a thing I never saw before, and never expect to see again. To 
announce that on an American road would mean bankruptcy, 
there would be no waiters or servants, and hence no one would 
travel. Further than this, everybody in free America expects to 
be paid, from the man who sells you the ticket to the one who 
grabs your bag and hands it to the porter, the attendant who 
dusts you, and the waiter who gives you a small pad of butter 
unless you grease his hand. 

DROUGHT 

HE train windows framed a sad picture. The fields 
were burned to cinders by the recent drought, trees 
were withered and sere, and pastures empty of 
sheep and cattle that had been driven away for fear 
of starvation. Some of the Australian trees are tremendous, 






194 AUSTRALIA 

250 feet high. Those along the road were small and scraggy. 
Some looked "blue," as if they had taken an overdose of 
eucalyptus, and the whole country was drear and melancholy. 
If the trees of the Lord are "full of sap" these withered things 
looked like the devil's. I heard of an Australian drought, now 
I was in it and could see its awful effects. We learned it was the 
worst in 25 years. Drought is a bad thing, and down here can 
always be relied on. 

MELBOURNE 

IeLBOURNE is much like other fine cities. It isn't 
necessary for us to go there to find a metropolis, but 
'hiMW^jl there is so much there it is unnecessary for them to 
""■ visit us. We are satisfied, so are they, and lucky for 
them in an island, a world in itself, with cities cosmopolitan. 
It is the capital of Victoria, and naturally there is something to 
see because it is the see of the Anglican bishop and the R. C. 
Cathedral. After we were settled in a comfortable hotel, eon- 
ducted by a Yankee and fitted with American conveniences, we 
boarded a little open cable car on Collins street, and with our 
faces to one side of the street and our backs to the other, took a 
caterpillar crawl up the hill. 

The city is laid out like a chess board; we made some slow 
moves but had a game time. The white man came here in 1835, 
gold was discovered in 1851, and the former has been after the 
latter ever since. Melbourne is situated on the north end of 
Port Phillip bay, on both sides of the Yarra river. Its popula- 
tion is 500,000, there are many fine parks and gardens, it 
boasts a university and college, and its industries are rail- 
roads, factories, foundries and flour mills. 

PUBLIC BUILDINGS 

HE national museum of Victoria has good exhibits in 
zoology, mineralogy, ethnology and a special collec- 
tion of Australian birds and mammals, as well as of 
South Sea and world-wide products. Most interesting 
is the aboriginal exhibit. There were magic sticks and sacred 
objects for initiation and ceremonies, for the natives had lodges 




AUSTRALIA 1S5 

and trap doors, hot sands, rode the kangaroo, and doubtless went 
home in a very ragged condition. The museum had cordwood 
loads of shields, spears and boomerangs, and there were many- 
implements for making fire, playthings, musical instruments, 
nooses to strangle an enemy, wooden vessels, nets, bags and 
baskets, clothing made of kangaroo and wallaby skins, and 
ornaments for neck, arm and head manufactured from shells, 
reeds and feathers. When they married they wore white in- 
stead of black, plastered their head with pipe clay, or as in 
some tribes, covered their locks of hair until they looked like 
sausages. Chaplets of whitewashed bones hung over their faces. 
This exhibit was a fine illustrated lesson and lecture, without 
words, on history and ethnology. I learned much without feel- 
ing I had to, absorbing it as it passed in review. Further 
objects of interest were Australia's birds, beasts, bugs and 
minerals. 

The Library had a large, high reading room with over 300,000 
volumes, dusty tomes men toiled to write, and people read by 
glancing at the title and skimming the table of contents. The 
Art Gallery boasted some ancient Masters for whom, here as else- 
where, the "M" might as well stand for *'mut," and there were 
hopeful canvases to show the beginnings of Australian art. My 
lasting impressions are confined to a one shilling catalogue. 

The city's buildings are splendid and spacious, and in this 
respect Melbourne offers the traveler a good stopover till he goes 
to that ''bourne" whence he no more returns. We took a three 
mile bus ride by palaces and parks to Hobson's bay where the 
waves kissed the shore, and Luna park where pleasure-lunatics 
most do congregate. 

Sir Albert Gould's card gave me a seat in Parliament. The 
Senate has 36 members and the House 75. It is a magnificent 
building and has a commanding entrance vestibule, Queen ' s hall, 
long corridors and fine architectural features. The Government 
and Opposition were engaged in windy debate. The Senate was 
wrestling with the mighty problem of the soldiers' underwear. 
It was a parliament of dress with heavy wit, light remarks and 
everything natural and human. 




196 AUSTRALIA 



I E ARBY is the 8 8 8 monument that looms high. At first 
I thought it was dedicated to some discovery on that 
date, or was a pillar to some saint or soldier, l)ut found 
it was erected to labor's triumph. Constantine 's cross 
in the heavens has been supplanted here by this column of 888. 
The shape was suggestive, a "club" to beat down the hours and 
anyone who opposed high wages. It may mean 8 hours to sleep, 
8 hours to work and 8 hours to play. Labor rules with an iron 
sceptre, determining who shall work, how long he shall work, 
and what pay he shall receive for his work. I wouldn't be sur- 
prised in a few years if another column was erected with the 
figures 10, 10, 4 as a sign that meant 4 hours only to work and 
the other 20 for rest and recreation. 

Labor is honored the world over, and its praises should be 
sung wherever the din of the wheel and the ring of the hammer 
are heard. The capitalist is wrong who oppresses the poor and 
makes daily toil a bridge over which he walks to the bank to 
deposit dollars coined of the sweat and blood of the laborer's 
soul and body. The laborer is wrong who takes his employer 
by the throat because luck, frugality or ability has made him 
rich, and demands a division of a bank account that his future 
ignorance and extravagance will squander. This world is a 
home, men are brothers, and the Father in heaven has given us 
all the guarantees of life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. It is 
the part of every man's burden to share the burden of another. 
On Calvary the Redeemer died the fittest that earth's unfit 
might survive. Gold, greed and graft are the world's trinity 
today. In politics, war and business men talk of the "survival 
of the fittest," forgetting that sympathy, sweetness and sacrifice 
are heaven 's best gifts, and love is still a greater thing than faith 
or hope in human hearts. 

A POINT OF VIEW 



T 



HE "Block" on Collins street is the place where people 

block the way to see pretty girls in pretty clothes walk 

up and down and show how divine a thing a woman 

may be made, by a tailor's suit. It is the same the 

world over. The exhibit of humanity is more than the build- 



^ 




"888" LABOR MONUMENT 



MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA 



^r- 



AUSTRALIA 197 

ings and stores of the city stocked with goods and gems. The 
philosopher, Hamilton, said the finest fruit earth held up to its 
Maker was man. I venture to disagree, and affirm that if he had 
made an observation at Melbourne "Block" he would have 
said a woman. Had the poet Pope been here he would have said, 
"The proper study of mankind is woman." 

A CAPITAL FARCE 

TjHE Commonwealth Constitution Act of 1900 provided 
j for an establishment of a Federal Capital in New South 
^^^j Wales, and that Parliament should sit at Melbourne 
l^^^l till it met at the new seat of Government. From pres- 
ent indications the Melbourne chairs will be kept warm for a 
long time. The new capital seat is called Yass-Canberra. It is 
900 miles square and 200 miles southwest of Sydney. The state 
jealousy between Sydney and Melbourne, which raged for years 
before the present site was decided, still rages. One side 
claims the site is a perfect amphitheatre surrounded by glorious 
hills, the other insists that it is so bleak and barren a crow never 
flies across the place without carrying a water bottle. I had 
planned to see this phantom city, but found nothing but its 
plans, and I was delighted to find these were the plans of a 
Chicago architect whose "I will" produced something far supe- 
rior to the gray matter evolution of anyone in Australia or 
elsewhere. The place is to be called Canberra for short. It has 
been surveyed, but not by the tourist. The plans are on paper 
and its castle beauty is still in the air. For the present the 
whole thing has been shot up by the war. 

WORTH SEEING 

REMEMBER the Alexander Drive, with its lawns, 
flower beds and rookeries, and the Zoo chiefly for the 
dusty ride to and fro. I don't know what the animals 
ate, but I ate my peck of dirt. The Botanical garden 
offers a fine sky-line view of city and suburbs, and the rest of 
my time was spent in paying my respects to the good Queen's 
statue, in watching the tramps who occupied the shady seats, and 
the gardener who with dry humor and hose was watering the 
dry flower beds. As a diversion to this quiet we took an Albion 
bus through a rough end of town, over rough streets, with a 




198 AUSTRALIA 

sociable driver who hinted very plainly that he wished I would 
buy him a drink to wash his dusty throat when he reached the 
end of the line. 

The city has glare and glitter, not only on its streets, but in 
the windows of its stores. Visiting a prominent jewelry store 
we found it stocked with precious stones, fiery opals and carved, 
emu egg shells. I know how to cut eggs at the table with a knife, 
and outline the white and yolk in designs on a plate, but I did 
not know that an artist could make a cameo of an emu 's egg and 
carve it with beautiful designs of birds and animals. We take 
an egg, eat it, and throw away the shell. They throw away the 
meat, keep the shell and make it a thing of beauty. 

There was a good show at the Tivoli because it was given by 
an American troupe that made a big hit with clean, new, 
snappy, funny stuff — as much unlike the average English troupe 
as a circus differs from a cemetery. 

At the Bijou there was a play called ''The Beast of Berlin," 
in which Emperor William took the leading part. The audience 
was wildly enthusiastic, soldiers stood up, men shouted, women 
laughed and waved their handkerchiefs, and if I had been a 
German and not a neutral my feelings and something else would 
have been hurt. 

MELBA 

JUSTRALIAN birds are said to have no song, but there 
is one song-bird from Melbourne that has been heard 
around the world — "Melba." I had heard and met 
her in Minneapolis, and kissed her hand as she waved 
me a good-bye at the Auditorium door, saying she would sing 
for me at the People's Church, Sunday, because she wanted to 
hear my sermon on "Hobble-Skirt Religion," It was she more 
than anything or anyone else who put the ' ' Melb ' ' in Melbourne. 
I had visited the Melba Theatre and was in the mood to bear 
her greetings from America. Learning she was at her beautiful 
home, "Coombe College," Coldstream, Lilydale, I paid four 
pence and rang up phone number 12. Instead of her silvery 
reply the bass tone of the butler said she was in town at the 
Oriental Hotel on Collins street. To get this valuable information 
required half an hour, and I decided I could sooner walk to the 
hotel ten squares distant than get her by phone. When I did 




AUSTRALIA 199 



arrive the song-bird had flown down to the jewelry store, I had 
recently left, to get her prize for having had the best decorated 
auto. I left my card with her maid, and to comfort Melba on 
her return wrote her a five-page letter. It required so much time 
that when I returned my wife wondered whether I had been lost. 

The phone was responsible for this miscalculation all around. 
At home the phone is one of my best friends, here it is an aggra- 
vation, a murderer of time and inspirer of profanity. "Hello" 
doesn't go here, only ''Are you there?" and so often no one 
seems to be there that you silently pronounce your American 
*' Hello" with an accent of profane ejaculation. When a tele- 
phone gets out of order it takes a day or two to repair it. It has 
the governmental temperament, you know. An American here 
would go mad unless he had a private wireless. Once I waited 
fifteen minutes. I would ring up and say, "Are you there?" 
and the reply would come, "Engaged." Finally, after being 
told that the party was still engaged I told her it was time to 
get married and I was the clergyman who would do it for noth- 
ing to get rid of her and use the phone. This may be ' * righto ' ' 
down here, but I thought it was very "wrongo." If you want 
to reach anyone quickly, write him a letter, don't phone. I 
was so provoked to lose this call, and my heart beat so warmly 
with passion that I hurried to the Vienna Cafe for a Melba 
ice-cream. 

Melba 's life story is interesting. This Scotch lassie was urged 
to study instrumental music for fear she would go on the wicked 
stage. She was in London once and sang so well in Free Mason 
hall that her critics decided to give her a square deal, urged 
her to a public career, so that under the teaching of Madame 
Marchesi of Paris, and with a genius for hard work, she sang 
and became recognized as the successor of Patti and Nillson. 
That silver, high soprano, coloratura voice of hers, though judged 
brilliant rather than sympathetic, has thrilled the world's heart 
in her characterization of ' ' Aida, " " Elsa, " " Lucia, " " Gilda, ' ' 
"Semiramide," "Elizabeth," "Elaine" and "Juliet." Melba 
has a sweet voice in a "sound" body. Food, drink, rest and 
exercise have been the conditions of her success. She needed no 
man to make her life a "grand sweet song," and if this Nellie 
Mitchell "Melba" did meet Captain Armstrong, when she was 
eighteen, and contract what was called "a most unfortunate 
marriage," she has been married to her musical art, a marriage 




200 AUSTRALIA 

which only death can divorce. Sorrow and heartache make the 
sweetest singer. 

THE BIG NOISE 

UT I did hear some music. It was at the big Town 
Hall, and like salvation the music was without money, 
though not without price, for Dr. Price was the organ- 
ist. Just before the recital I heard the tuner at work. 
Going up to the platform I spoke to him, looked the big organ 
over and said, ''I would like to touch her up." We shook hands 
across the Cs and I sailed in, tramped the lost chord under the 
pedals, proceeded with a flourish of trumpets, mixing up English 
and American airs, until I softened and slowed up with a Largo. 
He was so thankful that I hadn't broken up the keyboard or 
blown out a cylinder head that he offered to introduce me to Dr. 
Price at the close of the recital. The people soon came in and 
the "big" Dr. Price played a big program on the big organ. I 
closed my eyes, opened my ears, and dreamed I was in a heaven 
of harmony. When he stopped playing I opened my eyes and 
looked around to see how the audience felt. I saw Sister Susie 
knitting socks for soldiers. Young girls and old women were 
thinking of their brave boy's long, weary marches, funeral 
marches, and were making the heels and toes of the socks extra 
comfortable. No matter whether it was at the church, theatre 
or on street-ears, I saw women knit and knit, because their tender 
hearts were all knitted together in kindness. 

Music divides the honor with sleep in being life's ''chief 
nourisher." This musical gift of the Government is a splendid 
thing for the public. It was a great organ with over a hundred 
stops, and choir, great, swell, solo and echo key boards. And 
there was a master musician to play it every Monday, Wednes- 
day and Friday noon for the poor, the weak and the weary. The 
God of ocean's bass and river's treble told man to make the 
organ, and when it is played by a master's hand it is the king 
of instruments. After the recital I went back into the organ 
loft and talked with Dr. W. G. Price, who sandwiched stories 
and friendly comment on American music, artists and organs 
between his eating and drinking. 



AUSTEALIA 201 



TRAIN OF GOLD 




|UR own George Francis Train, the eccentric, cyclone 
orator, once lived in Melbourne. He was the agent of 
the White Star Packet carrying trade to the diggers. 
He stored the immigrant's luggage, and heca^use much 
of it was never claimed became rich. He had a lordly tone of 
superiority and was oratorical whether he spoke to a visitor or 
a bull. He was the observed of all observers, and the stars of 
local attraction sank when this sun of America arose. He be- 
came very rich, returned to the U. S., ran for the presidency, 
declaring if he was elected he would reform the world. Uncle 
Sam was suspicious of reformers and turned him down, so that 
he lost all the wealth he made in Melbourne and died in poverty. 
"Whatever Train was, he was no tightwad, but liberal to the 
poor and distressed, and he died mourned by many friends. 

Australia, like most young countries, had the gold fever 
just as a child gets the measles. It was a land of "golden 
opportunities." Perhaps the worst case was in Melbourne, 
Victoria, where the happy gold digger drank champagne in- 
stead of water, made a sandwich of a five or ten pound note, 
and drove around in a four-in-hand with frail females by his 
side covered with jewelry enough to stock a store. Fifty years 
ago it was a tough town full of loafers, garroters and thieves. 
There were no police at night, respectable people found it safe 
to be at home, and the flood of crime was greater than a cor- 
poral's guard could stay. People left the farms for the mines. 
When a man struck it rich he came back to Melbourne, bought 
a Panama hat, wore a red sash around his waist, had a Colt 
revolver handy and sported a heavy nugget ring with design of 
pick and shovel on it that would do for a pair of brass knuckles. 
Nothing was shoddy about him, and even his horse is said to have 
been shod with gold. When the shining ore failed to pan out 
well many a man, who was a college graduate and could write 
a poem or paint a picture, was glad to be boots or a bartender 
at the hotel in order to keep his body and soul together. 




202 AUSTBiLLIA 



SOMETHING BETTER 

HE love of money is the root of all evil," and from 
it grow dishonesty, vice, lust and murder and a 
forest full of Hell's kindling wood. All the vices 
as well as the virtues are represented by wealth. 
Whether we are good or bad depends on how we make and 
spend money. Don't worship the golden calf. 

Some things are better than money, for the gold we spend 
often comes from the crucible whose furnace has been fed with 
human lives. 

Health — It is far better to eat, drink and sleep well than to 
be a dyspeptic millionaire who can't enjoy a ten cent lunch or 
a nap after it. 

Home — It is better to live in a cottage with love of wife and 
child, in simple pleasures, than in a hotel or club that beats 
out the joy that springs from simple affection. 

Humanity — It is better to have a little and share it with 
the needy than to be a close-fisted Dives who tells Lazarus to 
go to the dogs for food and medicine instead of offering a hand 
to help. 

High Ideals — It is better to have noble thoughts and pur- 
poses and some knowledge of art and science, which reforms 
and elevates, than to be a millionaire boor who starves his mind, 
fills his stomach and comes home to a big house whose chief 
attraction is the table, side-board, smoke-room and lounge. 

Humility — It is better to feel the divine Fatherhood and 
Brotherhood than to boast of blood, bonds and brains and have 
a head and heart so full of pride that God can not crown one 
or fill the other. 

Holiness — It is better to worship God than gold, Christ than 
coin and practice a sacrifice of Christianity than to share the 
pleasures of carnality. 

Heaven — It is better here and hereafter to have the reward 
of heaven than the retribution of hell. 

Money metalizes the heart. Money-mad men think more of 
heaps of gold than of God or humanity. Too many are like 
Bunyan's muckraker gathering straws, unmindful of the golden 
crown held just over their heads. Christ tells us God regards 
such men as "fools." In saving money they lose their souls. 



AUSTRALIA 203 



A ROUGH ESTIMATE 



AUSTRALIANS are very fast to criticize the United 
States and to resent any suggestion which implies that 
their country is not the home of the finally blest. Peo- 
ple who have not traveled outside of Australia, and 
are ignorant of the history of any country but their own, are 
hardly qualified to deny or refute a criticism or comparison 
which an intelligent traveler might make. But no common man 
can argue with a mad bull, a locomotive, a hurricane, or an Aus- 
tralian. 

Australia is as large as the U. S., but lacks our inland moun- 
tains, big lakes and rivers. Accordingly, its land is low and dry 
and most of its five million inhabitants are found in the cities 
along the sea coast. It is a dry country when it comes to water 
but wet when it comes to booze. 

There are more men than women, and they all seem more 
interested in money-making than in poetry, art or scholarship. 
Australia boasts some original and choice slang. A tenderfoot is 
called a ''new chum;" a hypocrite a "wowser;" a young ladies' 
seminary a ''heifer paddock;" instead of our hold-up they say 
' ' boil up " or " stick up ; " a desert is called ' ' no man 's land ; ' ' 
they respectfully say of an old maid, "She lives in the Never- 
never country/' and for our word treating use "shouting." 

Their homes are their castles and their families are their 
clans. Schools are free, unsectarian and compulsory. Religion 
includes every kind of "ism" and the emphasis is placed more 
on doing than dogma. Labor here strikes for its altars and 
fires, and for everything else when it gets a chance. 

Many of the politicians here are civic "Larrikins" and Par- 
liamentary debate has often run into mob riot. Some of their 
misrepresentatives are less brainy and more corrupt than our 
senators at Washington whom they affect to despise. Australia 
is "white man" crazy. If she is to accomplish more she must 
import colored labor, Chinese or Hindus. Some countries have 
more people than room — Australia could accommodate ten times 
her present population. Gold and the press are the real yellow 
perils, not the progressive Jap and patient Chinee. 

Wheat, gold and sheep are the Australian's terrestrial Trin- 
ity. Modern Jasons should sail to Australia if they are in 
quest of the "golden fleece." The word "wool-gathering" 




204 AUSTRALIA 

means no idle, foolish fancy down here, for there are more than 
100,000,000 sheep, 20 to each person. "There's millions in 
it" applies to the number of pounds of wool and mutton and 
the number of gold pounds for which they are sold. A man 
from the ''back blocks" told me his wife could shear or kill a 
sheep and send its wool, hide and carcass to market sooner and 
better than he could. 

SHEEP'S CLOTHING 

JHEEP'S wool makes good clothing, especially for 
"wolves," though Australia could never furnish 
enough for the world's hypocrites. 

The she-wolf of hypocrisy suckles a large family. 

Lovers, like Faust to Margaret, offer the hand of a friend 
and the heart of a tiend. 

Merchants, double-chinned and double-faced, go to church 
Sunday, and Monday advertise fictitious sales, drive small-wage 
bargains and tell their lady clerks to find a gentleman friend 
who will tide them over Sunday. 

Lawyers make a pretense of long prayers and then steal and 
devour widows' houses. 

Politicians fawn and flatter to get votes and after election 
forget the common people in their personal search for graft. 

Husbands and wives who are saints at home, are sinners 
abroad. 

Kings, inspired with power-lust, kneel within their hedge of 
divinity and pray God to help them make a burning and bloody 
hell of their enemies. 

Editors clothe their naked, week-day villainy with a blanket 
sheet Sunday of ' ' old odds stolen forth of holy writ, ' ' and seem 
most a saint when most they play the devil. 

Priests and preachers, like Tartuffe, steal the livery of the 
court of heaven to serve the devil in and prey on their flock, 
despoiling women of virtue, men of money, children of education 
and government of its liberties. 



TASMANIA 



205 




206 TASMANIA 



A TASMANIAN RIVER 



WE BOOKED on the "Loongana" for Launceston, Tas- 
mania. The boat was crowded, and as we sailed out T 
3^^ stood on deck to view the receding city. As we passed 
^*^^^^ by warehouses, wharves and shipping I saw an Ameri- 
can flag flying from a six-masted sailing vessel. Off came my 
hat and out rang my voice, and a man standing by me said, 
''You're an American, and that's the first six-master I ever 
saw." He was Mr. Charles Atkins of the Melbourne City Coun- 
cil, whom a Sydney paper had recently complimented for his 
brave attack on political corruption. Down the river we went 
to Port Phillip, then between points into Bass Strait, though 
there was no time to throw out a line. We turned in early to 
rise early and get our first view of Tasmania. 

The ship entered Tasmania by the river Tamar, as seduc- 
tively beautiful as she of Old Testament fame who made so sad 
a shipwreck. We saw the lights of Low Head, and standing in 
the bow watched the blood-red morning clouds that seemed to 
reflect deeds without a name, in the English murder of the Tas- 
mania aboriginal race and the cruel treatment of the British 
convicts. It was 42 miles to Launceston from the Heads and 
we waited for the tide. It was so pretty I wished they had tied 
us up to the shore for a day, for in addition to seeing the pic- 
turesque hills I might have fished or gone into the surrounding 
bush and shot kangaroo and wallaby. 

LAUNCESTON 

LAUNCESTON is at the head of the Tamar river, 
surrounded by high hills, and at the junction of the 
North and South Eskes. It has 20,000 people, most 
of whom seemed to be at the landing to see us. For 
the time being we were of more interest than their clubs, coffee- 
palaces, parks, public baths. Devil's punchbowl, distillery, creek, 
golf links, art gallery or bowling green. 

Cataract Gorge is the gorgeous show place, but our low-tide 
river holdup only permitted us a passing glance. This city, 
second only to Hobart, is the center of the state's railroad sys- 
tem. The way we hurried to the central station to make the 
train for Hobart was a caution to any stray dog or cat in the 
way. The Government held the train for some official 's wife and 



TASMANIA 207 



train, so we made it, and saved a seat for Mr. Atkins. 
Helping him served me a good turn, for when I told him there 
was a clergyman's daughter at Ross, Tasmania, named Queenie 
Fisher, who had written to me after reading one of my sermons 
in her town paper, he sent a telegram and she met us at Ross. 

MAID IN TASMANIA 

TJHE train was late getting there because we were in 
I the sheep country and it had to stop to let them cross 
the track. I think there were as many stops as there 
were in the big organ at Melbourne. Two hours late 
we pulled in. I poked my head out of the window and cried, 
"Queenie Fisher," and a young girl and her mother ran up to 
our car. After my caged door was unlocked by the guard I 
rushed out, grabbed the mother's hand, ventured a kiss on the 
daughter's cheek, redder than the native apple, and made a fast 
and friendly talk. She said she had read one of my sermons 
in a Tasmanian paper and was anxious to meet an American 
minister who could be on the front page with the pictures of 
the royal family. 

At the different stations we met people, baggage, and crates 
of dead rabbits that were to be shipped for food. There was 
scenery of mountain and hill in the distance, and apple orchards 
nearby, for Tasmania is an apple land that can supply all the 
Edens of the world with sin, cider, pie, jam and jelly. Farms, 
fields, orchards and bush welcomed us till we skirted the beau- 
tiful Derwent river, along which were fields of hops, not of the 
kangaroo variety, but for the famous Cascade brewery. It is 
well known to tourists, if one may judge by the empty bottles 
along the track. 

HOBART HAPPENINGS 



AT HOBART our hotel was the "Orient," and less satis- 
factory for rooms, meals and general accommodation 
than any oriental inn I had ever been imprisoned in in 
India or Japan. 
Sunday morning we were in as fine spirits as the day was 
bright, so we took a ferry and sailed across to the little township 
of Bellerive with its sandy beaches, old buildings and fine view 



208 TASMANIA 

of Hobart and harbor. People come here to see Hobart, but 
I enjoyed it for itself, especially the old church on the hill to 
which the day lent the right religious atmosphere. Mr. Atkins 
was a fine walker and talker. He knew Hobart and its inhabit- 
ants, and when we went back he started out to introduce us. 

We followed him for a while, and then lagged while he 
headed on with the ladies. Reconnoitering we found the Battery 
with some battered cannon, sneaked by a man near the stockade 
and shot the camera, entered the Queen's Domain that runs 
along the side of the river bank and is lovely with drives and 
walks, and went to the Government House as far as the gardens. 
We were not invited in, and so v/ent to the Botanical garden 
nearby with its river esplanade. It was all prettily laid out 
with walks, shrubs, trees and flowers, and there were fine views 
of the Derwent. 

MOUNT WELLINGTON 

ASMANIA'S population is more than 186,000 and Ho- 
bart has over 41,000. It is beautifully situated on 
an estuary of the Derwent river, twelve miles from 
the sea, and has Mount Wellington for a background. 
The mountain offers a splendid drive. The "brakes" started 
at two o'clock, the four horses hauled a big load of us, and 
the higher we went the more beauties we saw of Derwent. While 
the horses were drinking we went by a long path to the Water 
Works Monument, to Fern Tree Bower, lined with shrubs and 
rustic seats for city dudes and rustic swains, to Silver falls, 
where the running rivulet is piped to Hobart, and then back to 
the "brake" for an Excelsior climb to the Springs, 2,400 feet 
above the city. Here a grand panorama unfolds 140 miles of 
scenery from Bruni on the South to Ben Lomond on the North. 
Our driver pointed to the Springs Hotel and urged us to go 
in. We supposed there was a windov/ there from which to get 
a better view, or a long range telescope, but there was nothing 
but a big dining room and a table loaded with tea cups and 
saucers. We sat down in the stuffy room with scores who 
crowded in to drink tea. When "L" and I saw the plot we 
didn't stand on the order of our going but went at once to the 
front porch. The hostess followed and asked if we were ill and 
would have some tea. I told her tea was rank poison to me, that 
the sight of it made me mad, that I was a descendant of the 





,A .-:^,.\).^^-'i^ :. '^it •*., 




HOBART HARBOR AND MT. WELLINGTON 



TASMANIA 




^1t' it 

HOBART TOWN 



TASMANIA 



TASMANIA 209 



Boston Tea Party, and that if I did like tea I wouldn't waste 
time to sit indoors and drink it when all this glorious scenery 
lay before me. Poor woman, she couldn't understand. "Was 
not all that land and waterscape scenery, and even Mount Well- 
ington itself, a means to an end, and that end to come up here 
and drink a pot of tea ? 

A man came to my rescue and pointed out the beautiful 
bays, harbors and islands. I looked down on Hobart, so pic- 
turesquely situated at the foot of majestic Wellington, at the 
suburbs that reached out in all directions over the ends of the 
mountain spurs, and at the harbor, a perfect gem of the first 
water. 

Mount Wellington is 4,166 feet above sea level. I had seen 
monuments to the Iron Duke, but none that so suggested his 
strength and symmetry of character. There is a place near the 
top, a rock formation shaped like organ pipes, that makes music 
when the wind whistles through it, of summer's treble and 
winter's bass. Keally, Mount Wellington is not a mountain, for 
it is less than 5,000 feet, but so many mountains of eulogy have 
been piled on it that the mere reader would think it was a twin 
brother to Mount Everest. Still it is to Hobart what Vesuvius 
is to Italy and Fujiyama to Japan. Its color is chameleon-like 
under the sun and moon. The guide-book has compared its 
silhouette against the evening sky to a "monstrous plesiosaurus 
stretched out in sleep." To me, an utter stranger, with more 
careful and conservative observation, it looked more like a 
scelidosaurus. 

At the close of this simple, secular Sunday we went to St. 
David's church. It was drizzly outside but bright with Chris- 
tian cheer inside. The music, service and sermon were all in 
keeping with the sun, sea, sky and scenery of the day, and we 
closed our eyes and lips a little later with the words ' ' How sweet 
a Sabbath thus to spend in hopes of one that ne 'er shall end. ' ' 

STRANGE SIGHTS 

|OBART is a Tourist Bureaucracy; you can't turn the 
corner without running against a tourist bureau, public 
or private. Our guide was Mr. Atkins, who knew 
everybody and thing in town, good, bad and indiffer- 
ent. He was an old bookworm and curio collector, and when 




210 TASMANIA 



I said ''souvenir" he started out as straight as years before 
when he was a sailor and rounded Cape Horn by chart and 
compass. He led us a curious way to a curious street to an old 
curiosity shop that would have inspired Dickens with other 
quaint volumes. Flotsam and jetsam from all the world had 
landed here. There were gems, bric-a-brack, china, lacquers, 
bronzes, furniture, books, sea-faring paraphernalia, chains, 
anchors, lanterns, compasses, and hundreds of other things any 
old sea dog would like to sniff over. Then, too, there were 
chains, balls, gyves, handcuffs and other delightful heirlooms 
from the early convict settlers and bushrangers. 

We walked up steep streets and on narrow and broad side- 
walks, by little houses of one story, one chimney and one win- 
dow filled with thirty-six panes of glass. We passed shingled, 
slated roofed stores that went up and down the hill like stairs 
and folded into each other like an accordeon. These were the 
original houses that had come down from bushranger days. It 
was just what you would expect in this quaintest of towns whose 
inhabitants are happy, hale and hearty, and regard the death 
of a centenarian much as we do one who has passed away in 
infancy or childhood. Of course, a sea-port has dives, and 
public men know the "pubs," so Atkins took the ladies into 
the Mariners' "pub" for a drink. What they drank they did 
not tell us, but their breath did. 

Hobart is not a dead town, but it has a cemetery and some 
of its glorious and inglorious citizens have walked the path 
that leads there. It was a hallowed spot where the city fathers 
and settlers had lain for many years, yet it looked as if the 
angel Gabriel had blown his Klaxon horn and the rude fore- 
fathers had been rudely resurrected. Stones and monuments were 
overturned, names and epitaphs obliterated, for what business 
progress had called a lumbering drag had been changed into a 
lumber yard. Now head and foot stones are propped up with 
piles and posts and funeral slabs made a good base for two-by- 
fours. Mr. Gray could write an elegy here, but I fear he 
wouldn't, and the only man to do it justice would be Swift in 
his satire. This is a good wood yard but a bad grave yard. 

We visited the Library, Art Gallery and Museum, and the 
last was best of all. There was a trophy room of Tasmanian 
tribes and minerals and of native fauna and flora that were 
similar in some respects to Southeast Australia, with which Tas- 



TASMANIA 211 

mania was formerly connected. There was eucalyptus for build- 
ing up the people and the ships ; manna trees to recline by when 
you read Old Testament history; sassafras, attractive as the 
same named tea and drink ; huon pine, the satin wood the cabinet 
makers pine for; celery for Nervy Nats; red cedar for lead 
pencils and blackmailers; pepper trees with piquant flavor and 
fragrance; cider trees, whose treacle sap made sweet drink for 
the bush men ; grass that bears rice ; plants of brilliant crimson 
flowers and tree ferns like those of Australia. 

TASMANIAN DEVILS 

HERE was a fauna exhibit of insects and birds much 
like those of the Australian museum and of the kanga- 
roo rat, the wombat, porcupine, ant-eater, duck-billed 
platypus and tiger wolf. The Tasmanian Devil has a bad 
name and character. Satan has a big family, with various repre- 
sentatives in every land, but the Tasmanian Devil is peculiar. 
He looks like a small bear, has a bulldog mouth, thick tail, wears 
short hair, is black striped with bands on his neck and haunches, 
is a night-prowler and loves to attack and eat the sheep. But 
the real Tasmanian devils were the white men, convicts and bush- 
men, who exterminated the Tasmanian natives. 

One of the most peculiar growths of the *'bush" was 
the bushranger. The Spanish in South America made cruelty 
a creed and robbery a religion, while here the bushranger de- 
liberately robbed, killed and outraged through pure deviltry. In 
this race war between the whites and aborigines there was a 
fight to the finish. The blacks learned cruelty from the whites, 
and it was a siege of slaughter. Often a black skin covered a 
whiter heart and more gray matter than the hide of the selfish, 
stupid, savage whites who slaughtered them. We entered a room 
and saw a skeleton of the last of the Tasmanian race. Campbell 
should have lived here and sung another poem entitled, "The 
Last Man and Woman." 

WHAT IS IT? 

HE ornithorhynchus is an animal with a classic name, 

and is so peculiar that you may call him any profane or 

pious thing you please, or worship him if you will, for 

there is nothing like him above or beneath. He is the 

delight of the scientist and disgust of the sportsman, a puzzle, 





212 TASMANIA 

Sphynx, a bird and a fish. It lays eggs and is a mammal ; swims 
in the sea or climbs a tree; can eat grass Thursday and fish 
Friday. It is a Jekyll and Hyde. Would you dare go out at 
night to catch it, and how ? With fish-hook, lasso, gun, net, trap, 
ladder or airship ? It is a multum in parvo, and the fellow who 
could bag it would bring home all the game at once. This 
''duck bill" is great game. Now you know it and now you 
don't. I wonder whether Noah knew it and how he classified 
it in the Ark. 

DEMON'S LAND 

[OBAET has a private museum, and over its entrance 
I would paint the words, "Hell-horrors, hail!" The 
walls were festooned and decorated with hangman's 
ropes, whipping straps and cat-o '-nine-tails, swords and 
guns, keys and prison locks, balls and chains, gyves and hand- 
cuffs and anklets from 8 to 50 pounds in weight. Every piece of 
this iron had entered a soul and every chain was a chapter of 
cruelty. Instead of Van Diemen's land this island should have 
been called Van Demon's land, and many of its inhabitants 
Tasmaniacs for their unbridled ferocity. The museum was a 
chamber of horrors, and its climax was the skull of a cannibal 
convict. Pierce. Where the eyes had flashed hate were dull 
holes, the nose that breathed blood was a bare bone, and the 
teeth that had eaten his six companions, sharp and dry. Pierce's 
own confession of how he ate his six companions is more horrible 
than Clarke 's lurid account of it in " For the Term of His Nat- 
ural Life." 

When the colonists and convicts were starving in 1812 the 
best jail-birds were freed to provide for themselves. They went 
to the bush and were joined by incorrigibles who had pre- 
viously escaped and were carrying stolen firearms. The aborig- 
inal blacks were a peace-loving people, but their men and 
women were so horribly outraged by these convict devils that 
they got even by burning the homes of the v/hite settlers and 
killing the inhabitants. Convicts, soldiers, whale and sea fishers 
defied the law, and there were fifteen years of bloody slaughter 
that the governors failed to stop. The whites were lawless, and 
went so far as to become cannibals. When the first convict ship 
came here there were more than 100,000 black natives, and after 
20 years only 250 were left. As an illustration of this 




CONVICT REGALIA 



HOBART, TASMANIA 










IN JAIL 



HOBART, TASMANIA 



TASMANIA 213 



convict brutality, an escaped convict took a native's wife. The 
husband objected, was shot and had his head cut off and placed 
around her neck. When she tried to escape she was brained 
with a tomahawk, her head was cut off, and then the two heads 
were nailed to a tree just over the spot where the murder-fiend 
cooked his meals. Tile names of Kelley, Lynch, Cash, Melville 
and a host of others are so notorious that I am not surprised 
their descendants have tried to cut down their upas ancestral 
tree. 

I had a vivid impression of what I saw and heard, but to 
carry one away with me to my friends I dressed up in some of 
the awful ornaments. There was a sensation when I came out 
on the sidewalk to be photographed, wearing a leather convict 
hat that a Port Arthur prisoner had worn, a greasy hangman's 
rope around my neck and shoulder that had slipped men from 
time to eternity, a pair of handcuff-bracelets, and an assortment 
of chains and leg irons heavy enough to hold an India elephant. 

Tasmania, once a prison, is now a tourist's playground. 
Then it imported criminals and exported them, and the prison 
often made them worse than ever. Times have changed. The 
Tasmanian now makes beer, jam, soap, candles, cloth and flour. 
Then they raised Cain, now apples. Then their principal pastime 
was hunting to kill blacks, now they hunt game and markets for 
their products. 

HOPS 

HE beer that made Hobart famous comes from the 
Cascade Brewery, which is situated in a rocky glen 
near town. Here leaps a cascade and hops are nearby. 
Over the entrance to the brewery were two signs that 
read, "Company limited" and "No admittance." But an 
American flag and clerical card turned the trick, and the man- 
ager sent us with a special guard to inspect the brewery and 
brew. It is made just like any other beer for aught I could 
see, smell or taste. It may be better or worse than some, and 
like other malt be taken for better or worse, just like marriage. 
Good spring water is often spoiled by making bad beer, and 
judged by some tourists who com.e here to see the brewery and 
then soak themselves with beer, it would seem that this cascade 
of cold pure water was not always put to the best use. 





214 TASMANIA 



A JAIL-BIRD'S NEST 

HE old jail is situated near the brewery, and a prison 
and brewery on either hand is not an unusual com- 
bination. It is ruined and dismantled now as an ivy 
tower, but the wrecked walls and cells speak sadly of 
wrecked human lives. We entered the big enclosure of white 
walls, open cells and cellars. While wading around in muck 
and mire to get pictures the care-taker's daughter came to our 
rescue. She piloted us around, told us horrible stories of hor- 
rible men, and directed us to cells, chapel and gallows. The only 
prisoners here now were the chickens and calves she fed. I 
balanced on a log and stone to take the picture of two calves 
that were investigating my kodak, but when I looked around I 
found my fair guide had raised her skirts to keep them out of 
the mud, so there were four calves instead of two, although it is 
possible I may have seen double. The iron bars were gruesome 
reminders of grilled hearts. I stood in a cell whose walls seemed 
to echo the sigh and cry of those who were in prison. But 
death set them free, and now sun and air brighten and sweeten 
the shadowed cell. Escaping from these jail-bird nests we flew 
through this * ' ti " tree country to the most fashionable tea resort 
in Hobart. It was down in a cellar. We drowned our sorrow 
and then boarded the "Wimmera" for New Zealand, where we 
were to meet the ''Maitai" for 'Frisco. 

ACROSS THE TASMAN SEA 

JN THIS Eden land of apples I wanted to drink the 
health and happiness of Hobart in a glass of cider. 
This was fitting, but the ship-bar had every other drink 
but that. We sailed out of the pretty, picturesque 
harbor, the little lights grew few and dim, the searchlights showed 
our path in a trackless sea, Mount Wellington was silhouetted 
against the sky, and we forever left this lovely little island, un- 
less we return voluntary prisoners enchanted by its beauty. 

The ship "Wimmera" was long, so was the time — the boat 
was high, so was the sea. It took four days in a fast steamer, 
and not four hours in a row boat, to reach Wellington over 
1,000 miles away. The gulls and albatrosses were the white 
wing scavengers of the deep that followed and grew fat on what 
we threw overboard. Captain Kelley was a good skipper, he 




TASMANIA 215 



skipped tobacco and substituted apples, and was benefited by 
the change. As tobacco was more expensive he had more change 
for fruit. I had the honor to sit next to him, and he can have 
the place next to me at my table any time he drops in and 
makes a call. The most distinguished, world-famed person on 
the boat sat opposite me with his young wife. He looked young 
ifor a man of such distinction, yet there was no mistake ; it was 
Captain Crawford, the champion cricket player. He could both 
teach and fit for college, yet this was his title to fame. Athletics 
is the chief study in many universities. Football rates higher 
than philosophy, brawn is brighter than brain. The Poles once 
made Lasko king because he won a foot race. 

Another interesting passenger was poUy, the pet of the 
fo 'castle. Every morning we had a serenade from her cut 
tongue of the patriotic song, ' ' Tipperary . ' ' I had heard it sung 
on land and sea by sailors, savages, society and soldiers, and now 
the birds were taking it up. She tipped off several lines. One 
of the most famous subjects of John Bull on board, the officers' 
friend and protector, was *' Larry," a big bull pup fierce of 
exterior and friendly at heart if he thought you were true. 

Thus sailed the golden hours, freighted with reading, writ- 
ing, music, games and cheer, until N. Z. appeared. We sailed 
all morning along the West coast of the Middle island, looked at 
arches, caves and natural bridges, took the first and last look 
of Cape Farewell, entered Cook's Straits, and without the pilot 
aid of Pelorus Jack reached Wellington after a splendid sun- 
set. Our old ironsides lay at anchor all night, the harbor lights 
blinked before us, and the moon and stars shone above us. 

TEMPEST-TOSSED 

FTER the sight-seeing in Christchureh and Wellington 
I have already described, the "Maitai" came in almost 
three days late. Her passenger list wasn't very big, 
yet when I saw her at the dock she had a big list, 
for she was built that way. Between Sydney and Wellington 
rolls the fierce Tasman sea, and the poor little craft had just 
made a terrible and perilous trip. The wireless was blown down, 
and gang and rail broken, her cabin, flowers and furniture 
upset, and her dining saloon was in most admired disorder. The 
steward and stewardess had black eyes, not from any fight with 
each other, but because they had been banged about in their 




216 TASMANIA 



staterooms. Captain Stevens had stood on the bridge midday 
and midnight, and was slammed around until he was lame in 
leg and sore in rib. The carpenters were already fixing up the 
strained steering gear, and the barber said he had propped him- 
self up in his little room and had a close shave from being 
thrown against his glass stock cases. An officer confessed it looked 
' ' nasty, ' ' and was surprised the ship hadn 't gone down the hour 
she left Sydney Heads. Some passengers were so weak and ill 
it was necessary to help them ashore. One old lady told me she was 
sure they were going down, and she just kept praying that God 
would take care of her and the friends she was leaving behind. 
This was the boat that had terrified us when we first saw her 
at Sydney, and it was to be our cradle or coffin for the next 
month. There was one consolation, she was so small the Ger- 
mans couldn 't see her for a target, and she would soon sink with 
us instead of prolonging the agony. 

HARD LUCK 

NCE more we were disappointed in our cabin, we 
paid for one thing and got another. The same thing 
happened on every boat. Don't pay deck cabin fare 
until you are in your cabin. The ship has always 
figured in piracy, and there is piracy on the figures it quotes 
you in fares. On top of this, our trunks were misplaced and 
could not be found up deck, down deck or in our steward's 
chamber. They contained our much needed thin clothing for 
the tropics, and we grew hot thinking how we would roast. Then 
we roasted the agent at Sydney for not putting them aboard, 
sent him a cable, and went ashore shopping, spending our good 
gold for poor stuff two years old in style. Returning to our 
cabin we saw the trunks. The lost was found. It had cost us 
much time, patience and money, and we were poorly disposed to 
kill a fatted calf and invite the neighbors for rejoicing. 

The old Maori custom of tattooing is little practiced now, yet 
before I left port I was initiated in this mj^stery. The customs 
inspector helped me get my baggage through. There were for- 
malities and writing. He held a pen loaded with ink just back 
of me, and when I turned round to answer his question the 
point struck me under the eye, leaving a black mark. It swelled 
and was very sore, and proved how mighty and sword-like a 
pen could be. I mingled a tear drop with the drop of ink, and 
am sure a drop of ink can produce a million thinks. 




RAEOTONGA. 



217 





218 EAROTONGA 

EN ROUTE 

AROTONGA is 1,700 miles or more from "Wellington, 
and we figured on five days to make the trip. Though the 
"Maitai" was small she seemed safe, and there was 
smooth sailing all the way. Captain Stevens as man, 
Mason, and master of the craft, did all he could to make it 
pleasant for us. Were it in my power I would transfer him 
from this old dredge boat to one of the finest and fleetest of 
the fleet. The Masonic greeting, like unto which Ruth gave 
Orpah, her mother-in-law, I impressed on the captain's cheek was 
sincere. In spite of this assault he kindly asked me to preach 
in the cabin Sunday, saying he would conduct the Church of 
England part of the service. 

On board there was an old man, a Mr. Young, who had 
skimmed the milky way of the South Sea Islands and knew all 
that Captain Cook did and some more. He sat opposite us at the 
table, and was so interesting that I rested my fork by the plate, 
opened my mouth, and often forgot to fill it. It was the Sunday 
morning I was to preach. We sat in the smoke-room, he talk- 
ing, I listening, and the captain waiting in the music saloon for 
my appearance. It rarely happens that I prefer to listen rather 
than talk, but this was one of the times. The captain was 
compelled to send for me, and when he learned why I was 
detained he excused me, for he knew Young of old. The ser- 
mon was the traveler 's psalm, a Scripture that should be framed 
in every ship and known by every sailor. 

A DECK-A-LOG 

I HAT evening as I sat on deck looking at the log I 
thought of a Deck-a-log for our passengers : 

I. Thou shalt not take God's name in vain because 
the ship folders lie about the beauties of the trip. 

II. Thou shalt not expect to get first-class passage on a first- 
class ticket. 

III. Thou shalt not covet the seat of honor at the captain's 
table. 

IV. Thou shalt not arrange for an early bath and come late. 

V. Thou shalt not spoon in public all day and night. 

VI. Thou shalt not vomit on thy fellow passengers. 





RAROTONGA 219 

VII. Thou shalt not gamble on the ship's run or with decks 
of cards. 

VIII. Thou shalt not beg, borrow and steal all the best books 
from the library, 

IX. Thou shalt not scandalize and bear false witness about 
any passenger younger, smarter and richer than thyself. 

X. Thou shalt not kill the rats and roaches in thy cabin at 
night with a shoe and wake up thy fellow passenger in the next 
cabin. 

MIDNIGHT LANDING 

]E had read and heard much of Rarotonga and were 
anxious to get there and drive around the island, 
^ which can be done in four hours. For five days we had 
talked and dreamed about it, for the office manager at 
Sydney had urged us to be sure and come this way to get some 
unusual pictures of the island. Applying Burns' mouse lines 
to ship lines, ^'The best laid schemes gang aft agley" — we were 
'way behind time and anchored out from the shore opposite the 
little town of Avarua, Rarotonga. It was 11 o 'clock, pitch dark, 
and only one little light glimmered from the wharf. We whistled, 
not from want of thought on our part, but theirs, and loud and 
long enough to wake the dead. Finally about midnight the 
doctor and Governor came on a tug that towed a fleet of lighters 
loaded with natives, copra and oranges. After these distin- 
guished gentlemen received their mail and papers they went 
back, while the native wharf rats in their red lava-lavas and 
laughter swarmed up the deck to help load and unload. 

"We were to sail at 4 :30 A. M., according to orders, and that 
meant no sight-seeing ashore. You can believe it was a mad crowd, 
and to pacify us we were told there wasn't much to see anyway. 
But seeing is believing, and if it was too dark to see I intended 
to say I had been on shore, even if I had had to swim to get 
there. "L" and I climbed down into a big lighter loaded with 
crates, canned stuff, merchandise, household goods and some 
passengers, among whom was a native woman and child I had 
kodaked the day before. It started to sprinkle, but undaunted 
we "tugged" for shore. The moon, wondering what this late 
and unusual noise was, poked her head over the ragged, jagged 
peaks that rise three thousand feet above the sea. We were wet. 



220 BAROTONGA 

and may have been silly, but this South Sea silhouette was 
worth it. 

Coming in we saw the coral reef with breakers going over it, 
and passed a wreck that had been blown on it. Our tug rolled 
like a barrel and I could see how impossible it would be to land 
at times. Dr. Baldwin and family, who had been kind and in- 
forming on ship board, were returning to their post after a vaca- 
tion. He bade me good-bye at the wharf, and said it was too 
bad I could not see the beautiful island and the Governor 's Resi- 
dence. 

As he disappeared along the white coral path we struck out 
for ourselves with the moon overhead, and a flashlight and watch 
in our hands, to see what we could discover in a short time. And 
we were successful, though the flashlight pictures could only be 
seen by us. 

ADVENTURES 

T WAS midnight, and a dusky girl was sitting on a 
bridge. As we crossed she looked the words, "O 
stay," but "L" said "Hurry," and I told the 
damsel we would see her on the return trip. The 
moon was a lamp to our feet on the white coral road 
that followed the low-lying shore. The air was stupefying with 
frangipanni and other fragrant flower blossoms. Trees were 
loaded with cocoanuts. The native houses were nestling among 
shrubs and fruit-laden trees. Sensitive plants shrunk from our 
tread. Huts and stores were built of wood, and coral stone was 
the firm foundation of the church. Everything was asleep but 
the insects which kept us company all the way. The moon played 
hide and seek with the clouds, and now we saw a glimpse of 
cocoanut trees on the left, or rugged mountain peaks on the 
right. 

"We were happy and hilarious, explored back doors and gar- 
dens with the spot light, and gathered arms full of flowers and 
blossoms. Tropical vegetation was wild and profligate. The 
libertine leaves, stems and flowers showed prodigal excess. In 
this silent tropical night the sound of our voices and stir of our 
feet seemed to waken life among the graves. Just as we were 
turning back we saw a light in the distance coming down the 
road. We stepped to one side and planned to waylay the trav- 




RAROTONGA 



221 



eler. It proved to be a native dressed in sulu and undershirt, 
carrying a lantern in one hand and hokiing a sack flung over 
his shoulder. He stopped, startled to see tv/o white strangers. 
I am sorry I cannot tell the reader he was a fugitive from justice, 
carrying a bag of stolen treasure or the body of some murdered 
or kidnapped child. "Were I a novelist I could tell a good South 
Sea lie right here, but I am not. Alas, he was on his way to 
catch the ship, the sack was full of big, green, sweet oranges, and 
he gave us several of them. He knew a few words of English, 
and when I inquired the way to Commissioner Thorncraft's 
house, he dropped his bag at the crossroads and started through 
the bush towards the mountain. I made him understand I was 
to take the same ship, that left at 4 o'clock, and took out my 
watch and pointed to the hour. I felt safer here on a strange 
island at 1 o'clock in the morning than in a big city at 9 P. M. 



A PAJAMA PARTY 

E CAME through the bush into the open, and every 
step brought a more beautiful view. Since our visit 
with Dame Nature was to be brief she disclosed as 
many of her charms as possible. We began to wind 
and climb up the bush path at the foot of the peak. Just be- 
yond us flickered a light, ''L" ran ahead and I followed with 
the guide till we came to the house. A frightened figure clad 
in pajamas appeared on the porch and cried, "What do you 
want?" Puffing and perspiring, we begged him to excuse the 
intrusion, urged him not to be afraid, for we were only American 
tourists who had just arrived, were sight-seeing, and had come 
up to pay our respects to his Honor the Commissioner. 

Then I recognized him as the man who had come aboard an 
hour ago. He was in full evening dress of pajamas. He urged 
us to come in and be seated, gave us a drink of water and ex- 
cused his appearance, saying he was trying to be comfortable and 
read his monthly papers and letters that had just arrived. He 
asked about our voyage, how things were among the Colonies 
and America, and then began to talk about his island. We 
learned how the steamers came in infrequently, at all hours of 
the day or night, gave passengers little time to see anything, 
and that the Union Steamship Company had raised the freight 




222 RAEOTONGA 



six cents on each case of fruit just as the Rarotongans were 
about to ship ten thousand cases to New Zealand. 

During his remarks a figure in white came out of the side 
room. It was his wife, who, slipping on a banana peel and a few 
other things, came out to help her husband entertain. She 
knew how, and we rose to go, for it was far to the ship and near 
to its sailing time. She gave us a native colored basket full of 
dwarf, lady-finger bananas, and a gunnysack of luscious oranges. 

NIGHT THOUGHTS 

WHEN I returned I found the girl I had left behind me, 
in the same place and position on the bridge. She 
didn't say much, but offered me a string of shells and 
sea beans. I preferred her for a souvenir, and though 
she wasn't very large I was sure there would be no room for 
her in our cabin. I hurried to the wharf to ask the busy purser 
how much time was left before the last tender went ashore. He 
said three-quarters of an hour, so we walked back to the road 
and started towards the other end of the island. 

Native, white coral huts, with thatched roofs, would have 
looked very pretty in the moonlight, but the buildings were of 
stiff plans, had glass windows and iron roofs. The only things 
that made it seem far away were the coral road, outrigger boats 
on the beach, the cocoanut and pandanus trees, the reef, lagoon, 
rocks and wreck. 

Rarotonga is an island, long and oblong. The only variety 
show is the variety of vegetation and natives, and their artistic 
and literary tastes are found in the picturesque and romantic 
scenery of slope and valley. The natives are simple, but the 
island is luxuriant. Irregular hills form the center of the island. 
They are called Ikorangi, Maungatea and Te Atu Kura, all 
nearly three thousand feet high. 

There are few autos and more American buggies than native 
bugs. Some horses are imported from N. Z., and they have sev- 
eral peculiar zebra stripes. Nature plants the trees and the 
natives plant graves along the road, and make it an Appian 
Way. Some of the graves are in the yards, as in Samoa, so the 
children may play leap frog over them all afternoon, for school 
only lasts from seven to twelve. What a paradise for a school- 
boy in this island paradise ! 




fm 



RAROTONGA- 223 



TWO SILHOUETTES 

HE scene and silence were intoxicating, but we were 
suddenly called back to earth and the thought of our 
ship by two girlish voices. The girl I had first met on 
the bridge had brought her friend, and they were both 
sitting in the middle of the road blocking our path and offering 
curios for sale. I bought necklaces and bracelets, fans and stick 
pins, and tried to buy the pretty shawl on her back and handker- 
chief from her breast. If there had been time I suppose I 
could have bought everything but the robe of darkness over 
them. Here, as in most of the South Sea Islands, beauty least 
adorned is most adorned. These brown women in long, loose robes 
show shape to better advantage than in French corsets and 
European dresses. It is not good form to crush beauty and 
life to death. These Eve's daughters, let alone by immodest 
modistes, grow tall, straight, big-limbed, small-breasted and 
broad-waisted, so that a day or two after childbirth they are 
abroad as usual as if nothing special had happened. 

It was late, I told them to be good girls and go home to bed 
for it was three o'clock, or they would be late at school in the 
morning. I talked with my hands behind me, and left abruptly, 
fearing I might violate an old Cook Island law, "If a man put 
his arm around a woman on the village road at night, and he has 
a torch in his hand, he shall go free. If no torch he is to be 
fined one dollar in cash and nine dollars in trade." We bade 
the girls adieu and went to the wharf office. Waiting for the 
lighter, we learned a good many things about Rarotonga. 

THE NATIVES 



CAPTAIN COOK discovered this group of six islands in 
1777. Their area is about 280 square miles, and this 
island is 20 miles around. England agreed to pro- 
tect them in 1888 and N. Z. annexed them in 1901. The 
natives belong to the Polynesian race, and the census estimate 
was 12,000 in 1900. Their speech resembles the Maori's. Fifty 
years ago they were fierce cannibals. Now they are partially 
civilized and Christian as the result of John Williams' mis- 
sionary labors in 1823. The natives average five feet and seven 
inches in height, and are healthy except for tropical ills. They 




224 RAROTONGA 

are good sea-farers, and, like the whites, work no more than is 
absolutely necessary. Rarotonga pleasures are football, cricket, 
tennis, driving the four autos on the island, riding bicycles, div- 
ing and swimming. The natives gather fruit and copra for ship- 
ment, and are engaged elsewhere in pearl-diving. Their educa- 
tion has been neglected but I learned from Miss Johnston, a 
N. Z. schoolteacher who was one of our passengers, that the N. Z. 
Colony was planning and conducting schools here on the lines 
of the public school in Auckland. The products of the island are 
copra, coffee, limes, oranges, cotton and pineapples. Their native 
food is taro, yams, breadfruit and cocoanuts. 



COCOANUTS 

HE coeoanut tree sways a higher sceptre than anything 
else in the islands. How it rises to this proud position 
is a most interesting story. After the soil has been 
made ready, a good fresh coeoanut is placed upon the 
ground and left there till it sprouts. Then a hole is dug some 
12 inches square into which the sprouted coeoanut is placed and 
covered over with a little ground. Yearning for the light it 
pushes up through the clods and grov/s, until within five years it 
will bear some fruit, and in eight years will yield its heaviest out- 
put of fifty pounds of dried copra for the market. When the tree 
is fully matured it reaches a height of from forty to eighty feet. 
Though it is a foot thick six feet from the ground, it tapers 
towards the top a branchless trunk, until nearing its full height 
a cluster of palm leaves is found, from which grow the flowers 
and the nuts. Nearly half a year is required to grow the 
flower and about the same to produce the nuts. This flower looks 
like a farmer's cabbage, and before it blooms out the thirsty 
natives often hang a bottle to it, tap the plant and let the sap 
run in it. It is sweet when fresh, but when old it drives the 
drinker crazy drunk. As a baby is swathed and swaddled, so 
the nut is blanketed with a thick fibrous sheet which the skillful 
natives remove by spearing it on a sharp pointed stick. No rag 
man need apply for this cast-off clothing fibre because it is made 
into matting and sinnet ropes. After the nut is cracked the 
native scoops out the white meat and spreads it over boards and 
mats to dry in the sun. It is then known as ' ' copra ' ' and is fit 



RAROTONGA 225 



to sell in trade to the trader, who ships it to the world's markets 
for food and oil. 

Here is a nutty story about the origin of the eocoanut worth 
telling. Once a chief made love to a girl and was turned down. 
He was so broken-hearted that he asked the maid to grant him 
this one request, that since he could not live with her he might 
be buried near her house. The girl gladly promised, and asked 
him why. He told her that after he was planted his body would 
come out of the ground in the shape of a tree and would supply 
her family with a nut that would be their food and drink, and 
whenever she tasted the sweet contents from the mouth of the 
nut he would imagine that he was kissing her. 



ORANGEMEN 

|N character the natives are not so immoral as un- 
moral. They practice divorce, gamble with cards for 
money and drink orange bush beer. Orange beer orgies 
were favorite pastimes here until the celebrated Dr. 
James Chalmers, missionary and explorer, after ten years of 
hard work lifted their bodies and souls to a higher level. There 
were orange men who lived in this green isle who never heard 
of the Emerald isle. Their object in life was to make booze 
and drink it. Foreign rum was their choice, and when it ran 
out they started a moonshine plant of their own, making drinks 
from pineapples, bananas, and especially oranges. In secluded 
places difficult to get at, there were spaces from which plants 
and bush had been cleared. It was all shaded by trees and was 
a Bacchus booze resort. During these orgies the native boys sang 
hymns and prayed, drank between acts, and when intoxicated 
threw off their paru clouts and fought each other like devils. 
Fifty men would keep up their spirits by dancing drunk around 
half a dozen barrels of orange rum. What a spectacle was here 
when these fellows, who had plenty of land and should have 
cultivated it, met to make and drink orange beer! Even when 
sober they thought they were well dressed when they wandered 
about with long uncombed hair, wore a girdle of leaves, a dirty 
old shirt and a pair of torn trousers. Washing is "done" by- 
beating clothes on a stone with a stick until dirt and fabric 
disappear. The bathers have nothing on earth or the body to do 




226 RAROTONGA 



but laugh and splash. Juliet elopes with Romeo by sliding down 
a cocoanut rope. 

As I looked at their canoes I remembered this was the home 
of that industry. Big trees furnished boats for the other islands. 
Here the canoe was the cradle of the Maori race, and from this 
island over seven hundred years ago the renowned Tanui and 
Arawa canoes set out filled with Maoris for New Zealand. 

RARE RAROTONGA 



Wl E LEFT Avarua, Rarotonga, and its rara avis, the bird 
I on the postage stamp that flies all over the world and 
at home lays an egg as big as itself ; the scenery, sights 
and sociability that had crowded a week into a few 
hours; the school and church; and the missionary, doctor and 
Governor who were trying to undo the vicious influence of the 
white trader and exploiter. 

Our lighter was tugged to the ship full of natives who were to 
work as coal-heavers and stokers to Tahiti. Once there they were 
to load the ''Maitai" with copra and wait for the return boat 
from 'Frisco to Rarotonga. One of our cargo was a fine, fat pig. 
He was crated, cared for and located as if he were a first-class 
passenger. Captain Cook's pigs' descendants are highly valued. 
An old law reads, ' ' A man who steals a pig is fined forty dollars, 
the man who cries after a dead woman is fined fifteen dollars 
because it proves his guilty relationship in life, and the man who 
is guilty of incest is fined ten dollars." Instead of the Scrip- 
ture, "How much better is a man than a sheep," the natives 
read, "How much better is a pig than a man." 

We returned to the ship and there was no sleep for us till 
next morning, for it was then four A. M., and we were 
to leave in half an hour. We sat on deck and watched the island 
of our midnight marauding as it faded away, a phantom island 
in the wash of the moonlight and wave. I went to my cabin, and 
when I awoke I thought it all must be a dream till I looked 
around and saw the flowers, fruit and souvenir plunder. 

At the breakfast table we were greeted by curious and ques- 
tioning tongues. It was so foolish, you know, to go off the com- 
fortable boat in the rain and on a strange island at midnight, 
and see nothing but the wharf. When we told them our adven- 
tures they bit their lips with surprise, disappointment and envy, 




RAROTONGA 227 

and when, to cap the climax, I spoke of our call on the Governor 
and wife, who received us in gowns befitting the late hour, Cap- 
tain Stevens, Mr. Young and all the rest were ready to admit 
that we started out to find something and got it, and that it 
was possible for a live Yankee to see more and do more in three 
hours than a dead Englishman or Colonial in three days or 
weeks. 

OFF COLOR 

UT from Earotonga the sea was rough on rats in the 
ship and on passengers who had just come aboard. A 
white married man, who had left his white girl wife 
behind him, was taking a pleasure trip to Papeete with 
a buxom brown beauty. On board there was a missionary 's wife 
who was trying to save the poor girl's soul. "When I saw the 
girl on deck she was leaning over the rail, her heavy black hair 
falling over her shoulders and her breakfast overboard. As a 
native she was used to fruit, and in addition had eaten "forbid- 
den fruit. " As a lemon didn 't come under this class I gave her 
one and saved her stomach, feeling the lady missionary would do 
her more moral good than I could. 

After shift one evening the Rarotongan natives sang their 
native songs, ending with "Tipperary" and ''You Great, Big, 
Beautiful Doll." As they were accompanying the songs with 
some gestures, I suggested they give us a native dance. They 
consented, and before I could dissent they plunged into it. We 
were in the bow with some sailors, stewards and third-class 
passengers for an audience. The natives only wore a lava-lava 
around their waists and went through wiggles and gyrations to 
a grunting and singing accompaniment while the chief dancer 
illustrated the obscene motions of an island sex dance. I wished 
I could forget it, and was glad the place was dark and the ladies 
on the upper deck could not see it. This dance deserved the 
prize over every Oriental orgy I ever witnessed. 

EYES 

FTER all the good and bad I had taken in I thought 

what a wonderful thing the human eye was, and while 

I sat on deck, and my friends thought I was asleep, my 

"inner eye" was open and I made these observations: 

The eye proves the existence of a divine Creator. 




228 EAEOTONGA 



Physically, it is a telescope to see the sun and a microscope to 
study an insect. 

Mentally, it is a lighthouse at the harbor of the mind where 
all the glories of heaven and earth drop anchor. 

Morally, it is a window of the soul through which love, hate, 
jealousy, pride and passion look. 

Nature's eyes are the sun by day and the moon and stars by 
night. Human nature's eyes are straight, crossed, far apart, 
near together, open or blinded. 

Poetry sings of the blue eye of truth, black of passion, gray 
of intelligence and brown of modesty, but prose speaks of the 
red eyes of debauchery, the yellow of avarice, and the green of 
envy. 

The eyes of the world watch the tragedy and comedy of our 
private and public life. 

A mother's eyes were the stars in the sky which bent over 
the cradle, and the polestar by which we steered in later years 
on life's tempest-tossed sea. 

The eyes of the Redeemer which looked upon Peter, with 
contempt for the sin and compassion for the sinner, look upon us 
to melt our hard hearts in a stream of contrition upon which our 
souls may float to heaven. 

We pity Bartimseus born blind, but angels weep over the 
many who kill the optic nerve of their souls and are blinded 
with moral corruption. 

God is our Father, we are His children, and not the creation 
of fate or force. 

The eye was made for light and the soul was made for God. 
God promises to guide us with His eye in the way we should 
work and walk, and not with curb and whip as horse or mule, or 
with foot to kick, hand to strike or voice to shout. 

God's eyes look to us in Nature, teaching us lessons of repose, 
cheerfulness, humility and beneficence. In Revelation, His word 
beams with help for every hour in need. In Providence, na- 
tional, individual and personal, His eyes are a light to our path. 

To understand our Father, in what He is, and what He would 
have us be and do, we should look up to Him attentively, study 
Him affectionately and obey Him implicitly. So shall He guide 
us by His counsel and afterwards receive us to glory when we 
shall see Him face to face. 



TAHITI 



229 




BOMBARDED 

ATURDAY morning we were all up early on deck to see 

Moorea, a Society island, with blue, lofty peaks more 

rugged and ragged than Rarotonga's. Palms came down 

to the water's edge, little villages peeped through them, 

and one of the mountain peaks was punctured with a hole that 




230 TAHITI 

reminded me of Torghatteu in Norway. It looked as if the 
Germans had put a hole through the mountain top when they 
bombarded Papeete a few months before. A Tahitian told me 
how it was made. An ancestor of his threw his spear from Pa- 
peete through the mountain and it landed in Rarotonga, a two 
days' journey away. The spear was 12 feet long, and if you 
doubt it you may go to the Louvre and see it. I thanked him 
and was glad to know how it happened. 

Hoping to see more of Moorea later, we entered a blue 
harbor and saw Papeete with its trees, homes, church and spire, 
ridges, flat tops and valleys. We passed near a small island 
where some Germans were held as prisoners. The doctor came 
aboard, looked at our tongues and said we could pass. On one 
side of the harbor was a half-sunken German steamship which 
the Germans had blown up by mistake. Along the water front 
were battered buildings that looked like Kingston's earthquake 
ruins. Coasting along the shore, parallel with the main street, 
we fastened to the stone wharf. 

Natives and traders had come out of their white houses and 
stores sheltered by the thick foliage. The wharf was abloom 
with color, for work ends when the boat begins to dock. I 
was the first man ashore, with a message for Taro Salmon from 
his daughter Ena at school in Minneapolis. Taro knew of our 
coming and had planned to entertain us, show us around the 
island, and everything else he could pack in before the ship 
sailed at 10 o'clock next morning. 

He arranged for two autos, and while they were getting 
ready we walked over to the ruins. One of the Markets was 
down and stores and shops V\^ere in heaps. Taro told us that 
when they were shooting up the town he jumped into his 
auto and went to the other end of the island. The Germans 
had sailed in under English colors. A small French boat fired 
a signal, asking what they wanted. The Germans answered by 
hoisting their ov/n flag and firing on the town. They were 
anxious to get the coal on the wharf, but the fiery Frenchman 
set fire to the coal and threw it into the water, saying if the 
Germans didn't clear out they would kill all the German pris- 
oners they had captured when war was declared. One China- 
man was killed, and a Tahitian, whose dead bodies had been car- 
ried in the auto we hired. 




SHELLED BY GERMAN WARSHIPS 



PAPEETE, TAHITI 




HOME SWEET HOME 



TAHITI 




TAHITI 231 

War is hell, and these ruins looked like it, blackened and 
blistered by smoke and fire. Some buildings were entirely 
leveled, others unroofed and many partly thrown down. The 
end of the Market was blown away, and with it the business, 
prosperity and stock in trade of innocent people. Papeete was 
hard hit, and the once thriving quarter looked like a cross 
between a cyclone and a conflagration, 

HELL'S MASTERPIECE 

ARS had spent a day's vacation here. Clio, the Muse 
of History, had written a new war chapter in black- 
gunpowder type and bound it in blood-red de luxe. 
The sun blushes with shame and the moon is pale 
with grief over a wicked, wasteful, wanton war against Chris- 
tianity and civilization. 

This Twentieth Century carnage is a crime against reason, 
religion and republicanism. It comes not as a righteous war 
from heaven to indicate and vindicate purity and principle, but 
as a rotten war from hell to please a few profligate princes and 
devilish diplomats. 

Offenses will come, but woe unto them through whom they 
come. It were better that millstones were hung about their necks 
and they were cast into the depths of the sea. 

These war-makers for pride, possession, pomp, prejudice and 
passion ought to be blown from the cannon's mouth, or be stript 
and made to fight each other with butcher knives until all were 
killed but one and the survivor banished to Siberia for life. 

"War, ordered not by the people nor by moral principle, but 
by the whim of princes and plutocrats, should go to hell whence 
it came. 

The present war seems to be made up of a desire of con- 
quest and revenge that illustrates Shelley 's definition of it, ' ' The 
statesman's power, the priest's delight, the lawyer's jest, and 
the hired assassin's trade." 

War means deviltry, disease, devastation, debt, death and 
damnation. It kills, not creates; burns, not builds; sacrifices, 
not SOWS; makes widows, not wealth; fills ships and trains with 
soldiers instead of cattle and grain ; makes a desert and calls it 
peace; balances personal glory and gain against the honor of 
God and the good of man; makes smoke a sacrament, powder a 



232 TAHITI 

principle, blood a baptism, and adapts the Beatitudes for its 
banners and the Scriptures for its ships. 

The angel's message, "Peace on earth, good will towards 
men," has been exchanged for the devil's, "Havoc, let slip the 
dogs of war." 

Brothers of God's Fatherhood, made to live here and to- 
gether hereafter, with the same Bible, Church, Prayer, Beati- 
tudes and example of Christ, are called to curse and cut, to 
shout and shoot until -the yellow wheat fields are red with 
blood, towering cities leveled to the ground, the song of bird 
silenced by screech of shell and the blue sky blotted out by a 
cloud of air-battleships which rain down iron and lead. 

Mars mars. 

To the victor belong the spoils of the spoiled victims. 

Night comes with victory to one and defeat to another. One 
city is lighted in celebration, the other dark with hopeless 
heartache. 

The divinity that hedges in a king is going to be trampled 
down, and the common people God made and Christ redeemed, 
are to come into their natural rights. 

The physical, mental and moral imperial imbeciles who are 
fiercely driving their ruinous ploughshare over the map of 
Europe, I would like to bury in a common pauper's grave. 

I hope that Death, with cannon ball in his skeleton fingers, 
will make a strike and bowl over the crowned ten pin-heads of 
Europe so that they may never be set up again. 

VENUS DEVOTEES 

S drove through the narrow streets and leafy avenues. 
Little houses on both sides peered from the shrubbery 
as did the natives with bright eyes and brighter 
parus. They stood wondering at our haste and then 
ambled off leisurely to the boat. As we sped along a moving 
picture was unreeled of hut and village, red crotons, grass and 
shrubbery that climbed up to the hill top ; laughing, naked chil- 
dren returning from the beach with strings of fish, and men 
and women cleanly clad in red and blue patterned parus. 

Captain Cook observed the transit of Venus here June 3, 
1769, and we observed many Venuses in transit to Point Venus, 
ten miles from Papeete. Here there is a tall white lighthouse that 




TAHITI 233 



shines fifteen miles out to sea, and a monument erected to Cook 
that looks like a hitching post enclosed by an iron fence. The 
sea rolled and broke in glory, while all around us were beautiful 
trees. We were thirsty, and though water was everywhere there 
was not a drop to drink, till a native knocked down some cocoa- 
nuts, peeled them, cut open the tops and gave each one of us a 
big nut full of cool, sweet juice. This was an unusual treat and 
the only blemish on this beauty scene was an old man whose 
legs were swollen with elephantiasis, a "leg"acy that has been 
left many a native. 

The recent rains had softened the road and on our return 
the autos plunged through red mud. Our machine boiled water 
in the radiator and while it stopped to cool we stepped out and 
viewed the curving shore far below, with its curling waves and 
caressing palms, and above us the slope of hills, and crown of 
all, the "Diadem," 7,000 feet high. 

Outside the city limits we passed a spot where the chauffeur 
said the native girls dance nudely and lewdly during the fete. 
On this occasion autos choke the roads and make passage im- 
possible, for everybody is here to see the orgies. We had no 
such privilege, for it was not carnival time, the 14th of July, 
nor did they intend to celebrate it this year because their com- 
merce was embarrassed on account of the war, and they felt sad 
instead of glad. The Bastile only fell once, iDut many are said 
to fall here every year of the celebration. They come from the 
other islands of the group, simple and innocent, spend their 
money and morals during the fete and with dress, dance, drink- 
ing, delight, debauchery and deviltry return morally bankrupt. 

PEARL-DIVERS 

N one part of the drive we watched native fishermen 
wading and hauling in their nets, but it netted them 
little and was a very poor haul. I was sorry I could 
not see any pearl-fishing, but Mrs. Atwater told me 
how she had often been at the water to dive for pearls. In 
French Oceania, in the Taumotu islands about a hundred 
miles from Tahiti, whole families go out in the morn- 
ing in outrigger canoes towed by launches. A diver takes a 
manila rope, fastens one end of it to the canoe, ties a heavy 
weight to the other, and throws it overboard. When he is ready 




234 TAHITI 

to go down he fills his lungs with air, grabs the rope, jumps 
in and sinks. Once at the bottom -his hands let go of the rope 
and seek for the shells which he places in a fish-net basket. He 
stays under two or three minutes, comes up for his breath and 
then dives down again repeating the process until his basket is 
filled. Then he and it are dragged into the canoe where the 
shells are opened. Some of the divers go down a hundred and 
thirty feet though many good pearl shells are picked up within 
ten feet of the surface. His diving suit is limited to a loin 
cloth and a pair of big goggles to keep the salt water out of 
his eyes. There is an open and closed season for pearl fishing 
to give the beds a chance to be restocked with shell and pearl 
deposits. 

A ROYAL TOMB 

Ol NE of the most interesting places to be seen is the tomb 
I of Pomare and the royal family. It is made of coral 
and shaped like the lower half of a pyramid. Over 
the main door is a large letter "P", above this a cross 
and crown, and to top all, there is a cannon that looks like a 
French decanter. The tomb is off the main road and at the 
time of burial Taro told me the place was packed solid with 
natives who had come from the islands. 

After the French protectorate, some members of the royal 
family, that had lain in state, were secretly taken out of the 
coffins and buried on the mountain by night for fear they 
might be taken to France. Later they were removed from the 
mountain and taken to the island of Huahine. There were 
peculiar customs and superstitions. One was that the king's 
clothes must be thrown into the coffin for fear of the ** king's 
evil." Anything that had been touched by the king or that 
grew near his tomb was to be avoided. The Tahitians were 
naturally religious. Their altars or "marais," were in the 
groves of Ito. They were like the Druid's high shrines. The 
idols are gone but the altars remain. Tahitians were not canni- 
bals though human sacrifices were offered as a religious rite. 




TAHITI 235 



SOCIETY GROUPS 

HE Tahitian islands are called the Society Group and 
the visitor to Tahiti will find various groups and 
grades of society. The first man to break into this 
captivating society was the Spaniard De Quiros in 1607, 
the Englishman Wallis came in 1767, and was followed the 
next year by the Frenchman Bougainville. All were so charmed 
with the ladies and gentlemen that they claimed the islands for 
their respective countries. Cook landed and was so infatuated 
that he made four calls between 1769 and 1777, and when Bligh 
came the following year in his ''Bounty", the bounty of nature 
and beauty of human nature prolonged his call to five months. 

The natives are strong and symmetrical in spite of their 
natural indolence and licentiousness, and the vice and disease 
that European contact has produced. The women, though 
small, are very beautiful. Many of the men are over six feet. 
The color of their skin is cafe au lait and not cafe noir. They 
have curly hair, black eyes, large and well-shaped mouth, 
beautiful teeth, well-developed chin and a good nose, except for 
the flat punch which the fist of beauty gave it in infancy. Men 
wear undershirts and parus, and the women fancy dresses to 
show their shape or gowns loose as their morals. They used 
to cover their breasts with shields made from the feathers of 
the frigate bird, except on public occasions when the etiquette 
of the foxy chief's court insisted that men and women should 
uncover the upper part of their bodies. They had a fine old time 
in those days — now this undress style may be seen by the most 
humble tourist if he pays the price. The chiefs wore short 
feather cloaks over their shoulders and the priests decorated 
their heads with sewer-tile-shaped hats made of wicker-work, 
three or four feet high. Both sexes were tattooed and embroi- 
dered their skins instead of clothes. Certain marks meant much. 

The Tahitians may have lived in low houses, but they had 
a high bill of fare, for in addition to vegetable food of bread- 
fruit, jam and arrowroot, they ate fish and turtles and were 
especially fond of dogs. A barking dog will wear himself thin, 
but there was a barkless, dingo kind of cur that was tender 
and juicy and so much in demand that the women often nursed 
the puppies while they neglected their own hungry children. 






236 TAHITI 

When the first explorers visited the islands they found the 
natives divided into castes as clearly defined as the Hindu; the 
"huiari," the reigning chiefs of the districts, who were re- 
garded as of divine origin and wielded priestly as well as 
political influence; the "raatira," or second class included the 
lordly or trust class who had a corner in supplying arms or 
building canoes; the third class was called the "tahora," made 
up of sorcerers and priests, and the fourth or last class was 
formed of fishermen, and of slaves whose brave service to their 
chiefs in time of war was rewarded with freedom and plots of 
land so that they rose into the higher classes. 

The blood of a Tahitian ruler was not only red but purely 
royal. There could be no admixture from the high pure to 
the low impure strain. A prince and a princess, though brother 
and sister, might marry. The king's word and influence were 
supreme and in his absence his queen ruled with absolute 
authority. The king was regarded as much a heaven-sent mes- 
senger as the statue of Diana was by the Ephesians, whom 
Jupiter had honored by sending as a gift. His subjects carried 
him on their shoulders and the kind hands of his concubines 
gave him food and drink. After death his body was embalmed 
and exposed for several days on the altar called ''marai," a 
public place of council or worship. The people went into deep 
mourning with tears and sacriflce and paid honors to the body 
that was later buried in a sitting position. Dead chiefs were 
also candidates for post mortem honors and if they never lost 
their heads in life, they did in death because their skulls were 
carefully preserved by their relatives. 

GODS AND DEVILS 

N Tahiti's early days there was a stone structure at 
Atahura that was called the "Great Marai." It was 
270 feet long, 100 feet wide and 50 high, and a stone 
altar, at the end of it, had a top reached by a coral 
staircase. On certain occasions there were ceremonies of the 
most formal and fanatical character that included human sac- 
rifices. A feature of this sacrifice was to disfigure the features 




TAHITI 237 



of the victim. His eye was gouged out by the officiating priest 
and placed in the mouth of the king. 

They had a good assortment of gods and their chief deity 
Oro was never represented in imaged form. The gods of the 
house were symbolized by little idols made in human figure and 
clothed with feathers. 

Under the guise of religion there was one body known as the 
"Areoi" to which the chief priests and upper classes of society 
belonged. It was a carnal club, a secret society of sensual excess, 
and to climax their infamous indulgence infanticide was prac- 
ticed. Yfith another name one could hardly tell the difference 
between the perverted principles of this society and the un- 
principled conduct of the four-hundred class in our Christian 
cities today. The height of the horrible was reached in a costume 
dance called the ' ' heiva. ' ' I learned it had been suppressed, but 
understood equally bad practices had taken its place which 
were encouraged, demanded and paid for by degenerate 
visitors. 

Mission work was attempted by the Spanish in 1774 and in 
1797 when 25 teachers came over in the missionary ship ' ' Duff. ' ' 
Pomare I. befriended them, but tribal wars brought difficulties 
and they fled to New South Wales with Pomare II. He came 
back in 1812 and renounced heathenism, and when in three 
years he regained his former power, mission work made good 
progress, a printing press was established and coffee, sugar and 
cotton were planted. 

Monied prosperity brought moral adversity. The natives 
slipped back into sin. In 1824 Pomare II. died of drink, 
Pomare III. was buried in 1827, and was succeeded by his half- 
sister Aimata, called the "unfortunate Queen Pomare." Then 
arose a leader who said he was Jesus Christ and promised the 
natives a sensual paradise if they would follow him. This sen- 
sual sect was called "Mamaia." It caused the missionaries 
infinite trouble and there are lingering remains of its influence. 

History says a French frigate came to Papeete in 1838 and 
M. du Petit Thenars received a promise from Queen Pomare 
IV. permitting the French a right of settlement. In 1842 he 
returned and secured the signature to a document that placed 
the islands under French protection and put the authority of 
the queen and chiefs in the background. In 1843 he came 
back and declared the treaties had not been upheld, deposed the 




238 TAHITI 

queen and took possession of the islands. It was the devil's 
doctrine that might makes right, a case of piracy and highway 
robbery and the French Government, while pretending to dis- 
approve the steal, allowed it to stand. Some two years were 
spent in inducing, seducing and reducing the natives to French 
forms and rules. The Western islands held out. As usual 
England had something to say over in these waters, and France 
promised to go back to the protectorate plan and let the natives 
have their own islands and rule them as they thought best. The 
tide is not only in the sea but in the affairs of men, and after 
years of ebb and flow Tahiti with Eimeo was declared a French 
colony to all the world. 

BY THE WAY 

UR party was hungry and went to Lovina's for dinner. 
Lovina is the friendly, fleshy female whose postcard 
picture is knov/n the world over. She is one of the 
interesting sights of the town and to miss her would 
be to go to "Washington and not see the Capitol. After we had 
met, she introduced us to a meal that was most welcome. It was 
served on the porch Avith shade and fragrance all about us. 
It rained, but undampened, we started out in the autos again, 
this time towards Papara to see a wedding. 

We rode through embowered streets resembling forest paths, 
dirty but picturesque; by houses in the shade where men and 
women were taking their noon siesta, not on settees, but flat 
on their stomachs, like so many children; by barracks and jail 
where natty French soldiers kept guard over the prisoners who 
sighed for the Fatherland; and by Pomare's old palace where 
instead of royal voices we heard the click of typewriters. Then 
we swept along the Broom Road where the humble class used 
to sweep the road in front of the approaching chief and jump 
like frogs to keep out of his way; by wayside creeks whe're 
the family washing was being done by pounding the clothes on 
stones till the natives were in danger of breaking the garments ; 
and by pools where we could see water nymphs not catalogued in 
Bulfinch's mythology. We stopped at a fishing village and went 
down to the shore. We entered a plaited pandanus hut where 
a native was changing his clothes; saw outrigger boats on 
the beach propped on stilts because the tide was out; and 




FISH BOATS AND BASKETS 



TAHITI 




DOUBLE CANOE AND BIRD OF FETE 



TAHITI 




TAHITI 239 



noticed big baskets woven of fibre and shaped like cocoons or 
fishline floats. They were fish-baskets with a little door on top. 
Hooligan would have been happy here. It was a happy scene 
of trees, fruits, flowers and climate and the natives must have 
been very happy until civilization butted in, as too frequently 
happens, and debased place and people instead of making them 
divine. 

WEDDING GUESTS 

N this land of love, where the natives flirt with their 
eyes as naturally as they swim with their hands; and 
in this place of Arcadian retreats by riverside, in 
secluded bowers and under fragrant trees where 
Daphne groves invite Don Juan and Haidee amours, we met a 
merry mob coming on in advance to prepare a wedding feast while 
the bride and groom were being married. There were a hundred 
at least from all over the island. The best men wore a wedding 
garment of pant and shirt instead of lava-lava. Their heads were 
bedecked with sprays of green and flowers and they were carry- 
ing a big wicker demijohn filled with wine. Women were dressed 
in Hubbards all the colors of their native coral lagoon, and their 
heads were wreathed and loaded with fragrant frangipanni, hi- 
biscus and Bougainvillea. Some of them wore little round straw 
hats on one side of their head that were more picturesque than 
our fashion plates. We paused long enough in the road to see 
this procession and get a picture, then hurried on to see the 
ceremony. On the road we passed other wedding guests in 
carriages and autos who were bringing their wedding gifts of 
fruit, vegetables, meat and drink. They brought gifts from 
the East and West, and Nature not to be outdone, gave a wed- 
ding ' ' shower ' ' of diamond raindrops for more than an hour. 

A DOUBLE KNOT 

N Papeete it takes Law and Gospel to make two peo- 
ple one. We came to a chief's house where a French 
flag was floating. He was not only chief but justice 
who asked the couple and friends the formal questions 

and required the proper parties to sign the legal documents. 

Mothers and children, fathers and sons stood on the porch and 




240 TAHITI 



looked on as witnesses. We were not invited in, but uninvited, 
walked across the road to a grass shed over a hundred feet long. 
Within it there was a big, double racing canoe that had won 
a prize at the last carnival. War canoes were double or single, 
arranged Ynih sails or outriggers and were often twenty to 
seventy feet long. If they carried the images of the gods, they 
were carved v/ith strange figures and hung with feathers. There 
are plenty of pigs, boars and rats on the island, but very few 
birds and I felt I had made a discovery when I found a 
red bird, as large as a roc, measuring five feet from wing to 
wing. It was nesting in the canoe. Sad to relate it had 
floated in the carnival and not in the air and was perched on 
a stick. 

Years ago the natives loved and paired off and were like the 
patriarch, "who took the woman to his tent and she became his 
wife." Now the proper thing is to make her his wife and then 
take her home. The justice had finished his ceremony and the 
half -married, happy couple sprang into their auto and drove to 
the church, with us after them. They entered the church, stood 
up while we sat, and the ceremony, very much like any other, 
was given in a tongue I could not understand. But they did, and 
when they had listened to all the obligations, and said the ''yes" 
that means so much of joy and sorrow, the friends signed another 
paper and the newlyweds came out, followed by young men 
and girls all dressed in white. Unangelic "L" rushed in with 
his kodak, raised his hand, beckoned them to stop and they 
did, once on the church steps and again before the outer gate. 

THE WEDDING FEAST 

OlNCE more we followed them along the road and into 
J the bush, where the wedding feast was spread on long 
tables under some sheds. They were loaded with man- 
goes, oranges, pineapples and bananas. Under an- 
other long shed the crowd was being introduced to the bride 
and drinking her health and making little speeches. Just 
imagine all this in a jungle of palms and flowers and the rain 
falling on us who stood outside. I smiled, bowed, kissed my 
hand and wished their joy might be sweet and beautiful as 
their island. One of the lady waitresses sympathized with our 
drenched condition and motioned her hands, as I thought, to 




JATIVE WEDDING 



TAHITI 




SUNDAY MORNING MARKET 



PAPEETE, TAHITI 




TAHITI 241 



go away, but she meant we were to come in. To make sure I 
stood out side where I could walk and look around. The kitchen 
was in the open under a tree. A hole had been dug in tha 
ground, lined with red-hot stones, food had been wrapped up 
in leaves and all covered over with grass and weeds until it was 
cooked. We saw them lift out the roasted pigs, fowls, sweet 
potatoes, taro and yams and it looked and smelled "yum yum." 
This was a strange M'-edding and I felt strange because I 
had no hand in it. It recalled some of the wedding scenes I had 
witnessed in other parts of the world and a number of strange 
knots I had tied in my own land. 

SOME STRANGE MARRIAGES 

N lion's dens, cages and arenas at carnivals, theaters 
and fairs, I always prayed with one eye open, cut 
the service short when a lion rubbed against me and 
sniffed at the calf of my leg, and once when a very 
gallant groom let the bride enter the cage first, I protested, and 
made him the "leading man." When asked if it was not 
dangerous to be married in a lion's den, I replied, "Yes, or 
out of it." 

A wedding in "high life" on top of a 150-foot electric tower 
at Wonderland, while the band played for us and the searchlight 
on us. 

On the stage in a crowded burlesque house, married the lead- 
ing man and lady with chorus girls as bridesmaids and the 
orchestra playing popular airs. 

Two professional dancers who tangoed into the parlor while 
I played rag time on the piano instead of a wedding march. 
After the ceremony they waltzed out to Strauss instead of 
marching to Mendelssohn. 

Russian dancers in costume in front of a Russian village at 
a carnival. The custom of kissing the bride by those present 
was dispensed with since there were 10,000 present. 

Four couples made one at once in an Exhibition building. 

Married a run-away couple on a moving train with con- 
ductor, porter and passengers as witnesses. This was one of 
the most costly "trains" a bride ever had. 

A hurried wedding in a " chugging ' ' auto so the couple could 
catch a train. 



242 



TAHITI 



''Hitched up" elopers in a buggy while the groom held the 
girl's hand in his right hand and the lines in his left. 

Tied the knot on an excursion boat on the Mississippi river 
with captain and first mate as best men. 

Beat the stork in a race to a poor girl's home, where with 
the doctor and nurse as witnesses, I married the repentant boy 
and girl a minute before the child was born. 

Married a couple at a maternity hospital. The girl's father, 
who a short time before had been ready to shoot her, her lover 
and then kill himself, acted as one of the witnesses. 

Married a young father and mother in a hotel room with 
their week's old baby in a cradle by their side. 

Performed a leap-year wedding in jail. The bride secured 
the license, believing that married life more than anything else 
would reform her lover. 

In a police station tied the matrimonial knot for two elopers, 
among officers and detectives, who had just brought in a gang 
of thieves and relieved them of their booty and guns. 

United a man who broke his parole from the "pen" to get 
married. Because of the wedding he was sent back to jail 
before he could get home. 

Married a Chinaman to a Russian in a house before an altar 
adorned with lacquered vases, flowers and incense. A sailor 
interpreter was the prompter and poked the groom when it 
was time for him to say ''yes." 

In a law olEfice gave a church gospel ceremony that joined a 
white woman to a brown Chinaman. 

Married a Jap to an American girl and wired Gov. Johnson 
of California that it would do more for God and Uncle Sam 
than the alien land bill in a thousand years. 

"Wedded a Gentile to a Jew who was willing to have me per- 
form the service if I gave one-half in English and the other 
in Hebrew and used the words "Jehovah in Eden" for "Christ 
in Galilee." 

Ee-married an old grandpa and grandma, who had been 
divorced for 13 years. Fourteen of their grandchildren were 
present at the ceremony. 

Paused in a train of thought on the lecture platform to marry 
a couple who were headed for the platform of a train at the 
Union station. 



TAHITI 243 

Conducted a service at high noon and wore colored glasses, 
not because of the blinding light, but because of the bride's 
diaphanous drapery which made the opening words of the 
prayer, "Oh, Lord" seem more profane than pious. 

Believing a Friday wedding was a "hoodoo" the couple 
waited till one minute after midnight for me to make them one. 

Married a woman to a man her jealous husband had shot. 
He further revenged himself by committing suicide, leaving her 
free to wed the man he had used as a target. 

Once I almost married the best man to the bride. As I was 
about to pronounce them husband and wife, the rattled husband 
to-be pushed him to one side, saying "She's mine." 

MOVING PICTURES 

Tj ARO next took us to his plantation where he hallooed to 
j some of his native boys. They ran out in singlets and 
^^^^1 lava-lavas and knocked down cocoanuts, cut off 
^i^^^^M bananas and gathered bread-fruit and vanilla beans 
for us to take to the ship. I noticed some of the shapely cocoa- 
nut palms had tin girdles round their trunks half way up. It 
made a stylish belt and was to keep the rats from climbing up 
and eating the young nut. One rat was right before me and 
did a trapeze act with tail and feet to show me how it was 
done. Then for fifteen miles we raced to Papeete by smelly 
shrubs, coral reef, curved bay, swaying palm, fantastic hills and 
the old fort where the natives once made so brave a stand. 

After dinner on ship with our new made royal blooded 
Tahitian friends, Tati and Taro, we called on the American 
Consul who told me his hands were full of perplexing political 
matters, and then went to the movies. There were two picture 
houses a square apart from each other, one for low and one for 
high class natives, with appropriate prices. It was an American 
film in two parts. We saw the first part at the society movie, 
then the orchestra played for ten minutes, during which time 
a boy ran down to the other house and returned with the second 
part. You see one film has to do for two houses and the 
houses have to move some to keep a continous show. The Amer- 
ican film surprised me, but I was more surprised when I went 
outside and watched the natives buy cuts of pie and ice-cream. 




244 TAHITI 



We went ito the other theatre where the common people were 
having an uncommonly good time. 



MARKET MORALS 

UE chauffe-ur was there who had showed us nature by 
day and offered to show us human nature by night. 
He proposed to take us out in an automobile at four 
dollars an hour and promised to furnish us native 
lady company as long as the money lasted. This was his plan. 
We were to buy the liquor and he was to take us out of town 
where the girls would dance in nude, native simplicity if they 
v/ere drunk, not otherwise. They are better than some white 
sisters in America who dance with depravity when sober. But 
the natives had been corrupted enough by the whites and I didn't 
care to be morally responsible for their behavior. We didn't go. 

The Market place at night is where bad beauties meet and 
market their morals. As I passed by, two brown girls gave 
me a wink and gesture, hummed a love song and were quite 
''Frenchy." Speaking of their morals, it has been said that 
some proselyters forced the natives to embrace them as well 
as their religion. When Captain Bligh came here in the 
"Bounty" it was the beginning of blight and moral poverty. 
He introduced the Apples of Sodom, vice and disease as well 
as the bread-fruit tree. The poison spread. France came and 
made a specialty of violating the Seventh Commandment until 
Papeete was called the sink-hole of the Pacific. She received 
the vicious from the other islands, made them more wicked and 
sent them home as apostles of wrong-doing to convert and per- 
vert other islanders to the evil of her ways. The result was a 
venal, vicious and venereal character, a Society Island group 
that became the synonym of dirt, disease, scrofula, syphilis and 
elephantiasis. The early natives knew what fidelity meant even 
though they did not practice chastity according to our standards. 
Among our passengers who landed here were two white, wealthy 
men who had come up from New Zealand and Australia to 
spend their vacation in a Papeete debauch. One of them gave 
me the address of a procurer at a leading hotel who could get 
me anything I wanted. Later I met him at the boat trying to 
drum up trade. Here as in Europe or America, it is not un- 



TAHITI 245 



common for the hotel to take a man's money and permit him to 
take any woman to his room without asking any questions. 

These natives were anciently heathen and imperfect, but 
they were happy, hospitable, strong, sober and relatively modest. 
If lovers did live together, they took care of their children. Now 
the state looks after the "little unfortunates." France's re- 
markable excuse for grabbing the natives ''for their good" 
would be a joke if it were not so ghastly. Under the guise of 
helping them, they helped themselves to their country, wealth 
and morals, soddened them with vice and soaked them with 
alcohol. The French are not the best colonizers and too often 
are bad in morals and methods here, in Martinique and else- 
where. There is too much red tape, too many useless officials 
who court corruption and bid for bribery. In Palestine wives 
and concubines were on a certain level of equality, here the 
"outcast" has only a mother for a parent, the fond, loving 
father having fled. The one most sinned against suffers, and 
the seducer escapes. If this seems a dark picture, you have 
only to compare the sweet and lovable Tahitian of half a cen- 
tury ago with some of the Frenchified natives now. The names 
of the streets make you think of Paris. It is Rue this and Rue 
that, but what you most rue are the German ruins of buildings, 
French roues and ruin of native custom and character. 

The crowd around the Market place was soon dispersed by 
the police who told them to move on, and we made for the wharf 
where we separated and tumbled into our bunks, for we were to 
tumble out at 4 a. m. to see the early Sunday shoppers. 

SUNDAY SHOPPERS 

UNDAY is the big sport and shop day here. The best 
bargain sales in food and clothing are from 4 to 6 
a. m. Think of the hour! With us it is the time for 
the milkman and newsy, but for them it is the cool 
of the day, the harvest of their week's work. They come from 
all over the island in canoe and carriage to buy, sell and ex- 
change, goods, glances, love and hate, if they have any. But 
we found more heat than hate in Tahiti. 

Stumbling through dark streets and over the ruins of the 
shot up town we came to the Market place, surrounded with 
hundreds of rigs much as a Grand Opera house might be the 



246 TAHITI 

first night. It was the best opera bouffe I ever saw. All 
kinds of natives in all kinds of clothes were selling all kinda 
of stuff. There were fresh fish, finny, freaky and funny with 
grotesque designs on them and brilliant colors ; mussels, lobsters, 
clams, shell fish, crawfish, pigs and fowl ; yams, plantains, bread- 
fruit, mangoes and papayas tied up in bunches, ripe and sweet 
for the price of a franc ; melons, berries, oranges, bananas, pine- 
apples and cocoanuts, strung on a cord or packed in little green 
baskets made of cocoanut leaves. You could buy the freshest 
of eggs and sweetest of sugar-cane or wreaths of white, red and 
yellow flowers sweet as frankincense at a franc each. They 
offered us shells for necklaces, or to wear around our hats, and 
mats, fans, fabric and braided straw to make hats. 

Some of the sellers sat outside on the walk with lanterns. 
They were dressed up to attract trade and were as attractive as 
the goods they had to sell. I wanted to buy up the whole lot. 
We saw some who had bought their supplies, carrying them on a 
green bamboo which was balanced over their shoulder. There 
was a fat woman walking with a watermelon under each arm, 
another bargaining and arguing as if it were a doctrine of 
theology and there were younger people, laughing, talking and 
meeting sweethearts and friends. The boys were tall, erect and 
handsome. The girls in their bare feet were small and had well 
shaped hands and limbs, with flowers tucked in their long black 
hair which hung down their back. 

I walked back and forth, in and out of the Market and in 
all the world had never seen such market scenes as this. As I 
left, I looked up through the ragged roof where the German 
shells had made skylights, and there hung the new moon like a 
banana and the stars like clusters of grapes. With the coming 
of the dawn is the going away of the people. The sun dispersed 
the dusk and the dusky natives. As it rose over the mountains, 
the moon and stars faded away, the hills that had been hidden 
showed tree and shrub, and the peaks stood a mass of ragged 
rock clear cut in outline against the red and yellow sky. But 
the sunrise on the ruins was like the flush of life stealing over 
a heap of skulls. 



Tahiti 247 



A CELESTIAL PARADISE 



PAPEETE is a Celestial paradise for the Chinamen 
who are the gardeners, store-keepers and husbands of 
the half-caste natives. They have large stores and do 
everything and everybody who may be a stranger. 
One Chinaman asked me just double the value for one of those 
funny, white-brown, straw hats that are light as a feather and 
that you wear perched on the back of your head. I bought one 
and wore it there, but never since. 

We had been up long, done much and were ravenously hungry 
and adjourned to a corner Chinese cafe. The ladies balked at 
going in but when they saAV "L" and me sitting by the door 
with a pint tin cup of black coffee, a tin basin of white sugar, 
a long roll of French bread and feeling finer than Omar 
Khayyam with his loaf of bread and jug of wine, they came 
in and said, ' ' Some more of the same please. ' ' The tired natives 
who had journeyed far and had finished shopping, sat around 
these plain tables, eating, drinking and chatting. My bill was 
half a franc and I had twice as much for the money as I ever 
received in Paris. 

It was growing hot and we grew hotter when we remembered 
we had failed to buy any of the straw fans for which the town 
is noted. The stores were closed, but I knew I could get any- 
thing at Lovina's and I went to her hotel. I drank a cup of 
tea with her and she found me eight fans of fancy color, design 
and shape. A fellow passenger was very anxious to buy a fan 
but was a Sunday fanatic and wouldn't. I put my purchase 
under the Bible head of mercy and necessity. 

Prettier than Lovina's fan was her daughter Dora. I 
wanted her picture just as she darted across the room, a phan- 
tom of delight in some graceful diaphanous drapery. She said, 
*'Wait", I did, and she returned clad in a Jap kimono. I 
couldn't get my arm around her mother, for her waist line was 
too great, but did around the daughter as the picture proves. 
It was a sin and shame that the ship didn't stay over another 
twenty-four hours. I might have secured other photos, book 
and lecture material, but the "Maitai" was billed to go and I 
had to go. And go we did by foot and auto to what remained 
unseen and unvisited. 

'*L" and I had seen about all except the famous "upa-upa" 



248 TAHITI 

dance. The original was of lewd gesture and amorous contortion, 
a vulgar wiggle and human nature dance. What we saw was de- 
uaturized like alcohol, and less fiery. The natives wore shell 
tiaras, or wreaths of flowers around their heads, for whether it 
be his posture or imposture, a Tahitian is always artistic and 
poetic. It was a South Sea calisthenic exercise. They stood 
on one leg, threw out an arm and placed the other arms and 
hands on their breast. The movement was a wiggle of feet, legs, 
hands and arms and is often accompanied by native music that 
seems to have been written and adapted more for the feet than 
the ears. 

When the sun came up we entered the Cathedral and watched 
the Avorshippers in their Sunday clothes and fine, brown straw 
hats. This was the only thing that appealed to me or that I 
could understand except the music. The Tahitians have imported 
many French and modern airs. Their own "hymmes" are 
quaint, striking and musically monotonous. They are learned 
by ear and passed on from choir to choir. Some of them have 
a fugue movement that is begun by the women who strike a 
high note and sustain it till the men join in and merge it into 
a harmony. Through all of it there buzzes a drone like bass. 

It was hard to leave Papeete because of its history, scenery 
and new made friends. We found ties that clung to us like 
the cocoanut and pandanus trees to the shore. Tahiti is one of 
the loveliest of the South Sea Islands, a dreamland Vfhere it is 
always summer and you may smile the year round. 

On the wharf I found shells, not German, that Taro and 
Tati had brought us, besides sample bunches of fruit, oranges, 
bananas and cocoanuts that filled our room and flowed up on 
the hurricane deck. We took on the mail in a hurry and nearly 
left two females who had been shopping. We said "Ta ta" 
to Taro, Tati and Tahiti as the ship carried us away from 
these lovely islands and islanders, where ''the coral waxes, 
palm grows and man departs" — this Eden that God has done so 
much to make a heaven, and man to make a hell. 

Once more we sailed out beyond the lagoon, our bow cut 
the wine-colored waves, the mountain Diadem, crag and gorge 
faded in the distance and we drifted by coral islands whose 
palms looked like nymphs with sun-shades over their heads. 
It was the last land till we landed at 'Frisco. 




a^AHifi 249 



ISLAND DEFINITIONS 

S the last of these South Sea Islands sank below the 
horizon, I asked myself what an island was. It is a 
body of land surrounded by water, but the land is so 
small and the water so big it is often hard to dis- 
cover. When it is once found it is a nice place for a ship- 
wreck, penal colony, place of banishment, setting for poem 
or novel and background for a picture. It is a meeting place 
of the lines of poets, steamship companies, latitude and longitude 
and cables. On an island you may grow fruit, flowers, whiskers 
and sentimental. Concerning its beauties, tourist bureaus unite 
with ancient Greek and Roman writers in mythical and fabu- 
lous accounts. It is a paradise of missionaries, merchants, 
mosquitoes and beach-combers ; Nature 's sanatorium for the sick ; 
a home for ease and invalids ; an oasis in a watery desert where 
Bibles and booze are imported; a garden where flowers, fruits 
and European vices flourish; a reservoir of rain and a furnace 
of heat; a land flowing with lava and kava; something nice in 
a calm and nasty in a storm ; a rendezvous of the fair sex, insects 
and church sects ; a sporty place that gets next to the sea and is 
boxed by the wave; something you sail to in fair weather and 
avoid in foul; a resort visited by hurricanes, tourists and 
plagues; a rubbish reef strewn with the wrecks of ships and 
souls ; a location on which to build a church spire or lighthouse ; 
land that takes Protean shape in clear or cloudy sky, and rises 
or sinks, changing color and form ; the top of a submarine cause- 
way; an idler's Eden; a refuge from unkind neighbors, tax 
collectors, peddlers and politicians; a cannibal's country-seat 
surrounded by coral reefs. 

The South Seas made a general impression on Stevenson, 
but a ''Wonder Book" larger and more wonderful than Haw- 
thorne's, with traditions and myths, remains to be written. 
The South Seas taught me some new A, B, Cs. Here is my 
antipodean alphabet: 

MY ANTIPODEAN ALPHABET 

Atolls 

Beach-combers 
Copra 
Dances 



250 



TAHITI 



Egotism 

Fruits 

Gambling 

Hurricanes 

Idleness 

Jealousy 

Kava 

Licentiousness 

Missionaries 

Natives 

Outrigger canoes 

Pearls 

Quiet 

Racing 

Songs 

Tapa 

Union Steam Ship Line 

Volcanoes 

Wrecks 

'Xploitation of natives 

Yaws 

Zoology 



ELBERT HUBBARD 



AT Tahiti the newly erected wireless told us of the 
Lusitania's unknelled, uncoffined, but not unknown 
dead, and as our ship ploughed her way for thirteen 
days through the wide waste of the Pacific waters, 
every swell and wave looked like a grave. To me the blue sky 
was clouded, the sun red with crying and the moon pale with 
grief at the ' ' deep damnation of his taking off. ' ' 

Elbert Hubbard was my associate pastor in the People's 
Church and my personal friend. 

Some years ago he came up at the close of a sermon, grasped 
my hand and said, ''God bless you, Golightly, that's just what 
I needed — come over to the hotel this afternoon and talk it 
over with me and Alice," I did. 

Just before I went to Australia and the South Seas, he 
wrote, "I would like awfully well to go with you but I am 




ELBERT HUBBARD AND G. L. MORRILL, EAST AURORA, N. Y. 



TAHITI 251 



up to my ears in business. I hope you have a splendid time 
and come back with a big cargo of ideas." 

Elbert Hubbard was a man, "take him for all in all, I shall 
not look upon his like again. ' ' 

Physically, he was tall and striking and had worked with 
his hands in field and factory until his body was the strong 
servant of a will that could do easily, well and happily what- 
ever he undertook. 

Intellectually, he could think, write and talk, originally, 
logically, dramatically, critically, or sympathetically in his 
"Little Journeys," "Fra," "Philistine," "Consecrated Lives," 
"Love, Life and Work," "Health and Wealth," "A Message 
to Garcia," and "Great Teachers." 

Socially, with one or hundreds in salon, club or on lecture 
platform and circuit, he was the soul of wit, humour, satire, 
pathos, kindness and good cheer. For years he has set the 
joy-bells ringing in the soul, planted flowers in life's wilder- 
ness way, and lighted and kept burning the stars in sorrow's 
dark night. The sound of his voice, glance of eye, ring of 
laugh, smile of face and hand-clasp made merry hearts which 
did good likd medicine. 

He was a man of marked contrasts and could be light or 
lightning. He played all the feelings in the scale of human 
nature from the treble of joy to the bass of grief. He was 
gentle as a rose-leaf or granite as Gibraltar; a snow-flake or 
an avalanche; a dew-drop or a flood; a zephyr or a hurricane. 
He could be calm as the sea when it steals to the coral shore 
and kisses the reef, or as furious when its big waves hiss and 
thunder, hurling wreck and ruin against the rocks. 

My "Fra" friend had kindly written of me and my work 
in the Philistine, often quoted me in the Fra, but he wanted me 
to visit him in his home at East Aurora and lecture. He met 
me at the Roycroft Inn with open hand and heart, gave me the 
Beethoven room, placed my table near his, took me around to see 
his books, pictures and curios and when I played the big piano 
he swung his hat, laughed, clapped his hands and said, ' ' I like 
music, Golightly, and I like you." 

He showed me the workshops where magazines were printed, 
books bound, wood carved, brass hammered and leather gi'aved. 
I was introduced to many of the youth of the city in his 
employ who looked upon and loved him as friend and father. 



252 TAHITI 

We walked under the trees and drove out to his farm, during all 
of which time his talk and laughter were as bright as the sky- 
overhead and as sweet as the flowers and grain round about. He 
presented me to "Miriam," his daughter, and "Alice," his wife 
whom he had crowned with his "White Hyacinths", declaring 
with lover-like enthusiasm, "I believe that Alice Hubbard, in 
way of mental reach, sanity, sympathy and all around ability, 
outclasses any woman of history, ancient or modern, mentally, 
morally and spiritually." 

He introduced me the two evenings I spoke in the Roycroft 
Salon, and his way was so gentle, and his words so kind and 
complimentary that when he sat down before me to listen, it 
was easy to feel my best and do my best. 

Hubbard was not perfect and if he had been I would not 
have loved him and he would not have liked nie. He never 
claimed to be perfect. Like all big and unusual men, he had 
big and unusual temptations and faults which little souls never 
have and never can appreciate or forgive. We rejoice in the 
brightness of the sun even if it has spots, and delight in the 
Psalms of David, though the life of the royal singer was stained 
with adultery and murder. 

Among the beautiful Roycroft books he gave me, inscribed 
with kind words, is one of great comfort to me in this hour of 
personal loss. Written on the title page are these words: 
"To G. L. Morrill 

My Dear Friend: You say that if I join your church you 
will never put me out, no matter how bad I am. This is an 
inducement — why should we put bad people out of church or 
refuse to associate v/ith them? If there is any virtue in us, 
perhaps we can make them better. You have made me better; 
also you have made me laugh. Love, 

ELBERT HUBBARD, 
Minneapolis, Dec. 1, 1910." 

THE "MAITAI" DERELICT 

HURSDAY we crossed the Equator, our warm old 

friend, Friday was cooler, Saturday a little rough and 

then our ship suddenly seemed to take a dislike to us, 

or didn't care to go to the U. S., and stopped. Of 

all places to stop ! No island, tree or ship was in sight and at 




TAHITI 253 



the last two ports, where all these things were in evidence, she 
couldn't or wouldn't wait. Here the homely ''Maitai" realized 
the classic quotation, ''As idle as a painted ship upon a painted 
ocean." We wondered what the matter could be. It could be 
anything, but not one of the officers told us anything. Some 
of the passengers were frightened thinking she was on her last 
sea legs and would go down. One woman got a life preserver 
ready, others placed valuables in their money belts and waited 
developments to see whether values would go up or down. Some 
thought more of fishlines than life-lines or lines written and 
sealed in a bottle, and planned to catch a shark before he caught 
them. It was funny to note the indifference or anxiety of the 
passengers. There was nothing to do but wait till the boat 
went on or down. Luckily there were no German guns near or 
the ''Maitai" would have made a mighty good target. After 
two hours' persuasion the boat consented to try and hold together 
until we reached 'Frisco a week later. Amid the prayers of the 
passengers and oaths of the sailors she moved again. 

The "Maitai" has had her day, but has not ceased to be. 
Small, stuffy, smoky and smelly as she was, the worst thing 
about her was she always listed but never turned over, floated, 
but never sank. She had made hundreds of thousands of pounds 
for the company and was still used in pounding dollars out of 
the tourist. Any ship is a prison, but the "Maitai" would 
have made a ''Success" as a convict ship. She had no upper 
decks, the staterooms v\^ere like vaults and the bunks like 
coffins; the steering chain crossed the one deck so that if you 
promenaded you were forced to walk up and down a platform 
in stepping over it. The first-class was worse than the second 
and not as good as third on some boats. The aisles were like 
prison corridors and the rattle of the ash cans and braying of 
the donkey engines made life hideous to us in our cell-like cabins. 
The difference between our bunk and that in a cell was that a 
prisoner could sleep in his while our passengers were so ' ' listed, ' ' 
that when she struck a sea they had to prop themselves in to 
keep from rolling out. 

Every morning a steward baited a trap to catch some of 
the stowaways who shared our cabin. They were rats that 
squeaked and shrieked "in fifty different sharps and flats." 
One hot night as I lay on the old cabin floor, with my head 
on the sill for a pillow, I saw a roistering rodent sneak along 



251 TAHITI 



the passage, and while I was wondering where he was going, 
he hurdled right over me, I gave such a jump that not even 
the Pied Piper of Hamelin could have brought him back. 
Mr. Rat had sampled everything in the nearby pantry and long- 
ing for a change, had visited us every night. He ate the top of 
my wife's shoes for an appetizer, ate the tongues of *'L's" 
shoes for a side dish and nibbled the straps of my valise for 
dessert. He enjoyed it so much that night after night he 
brought his ratty friends with hira until we placed the bill of 
fare so high he could not reach it. He paid the price at last, 
I heard the trap snap, he gave a squeak and scratch and was 
dead as Polonius. The ship folder reads, "There is much in 
life on ship board that appeals to one." This was one form of 
life I didn't care much for. However, the passengers were 
all good fellows. There was every shade of political and re- 
ligious belief and artistic and scientific theory. We were all 
friends and had to be. The advantage of a small ship is that 
misery likes company. 

Sunday came with the swish of the waves and a sunshiny 
sky bringing rest, peace, health and happiness. In the morning 
I preached in the first cabin, made an address in the evening 
to the passengers in the second and would have gone to the 
third had there been time. Service at sea is unlike any other. 
There is an inspiration in the surroundings, and the thought of 
only a plank between you and eternity makes you serious. Even 
the fast set slows down. 

PANAMA EXPOSITION 



THE night before we entered 'Frisco harbor our hearts 
pumped faster than the engines and we were in the 
harbor long before the * * Maitai. ' * When we awoke, we 
were anchored for the doctor. The sun came up 
and gilded the Exposition buildings, and water, island and sails 
looked as enchanting as the Golden Horn of the Bosphorus. 

It didn't take long to declare our baggage, though the 
oflScials are more strict here than at New York. Since we had 
no buggy fruit, contraband natives or black opals, we were soon 
free. The land was solid under our feet, the flag entered our 
soul and we were soon out at the Panama Exposition. 

Don't worry. I saw "Stella" on the "Zone" and all the 



AMERICA 255 



other stellar attractions; brought greetings to the Maoris, Sa- 
moans and Hawaiians from their friends ; heard Sousa and the 
Boston Symphony and saw the whole alphabet of attractions 
from A art to Z zone. The 'Frisco Zone is not the temperate, but 
the torrid with its Cairo, Samoan and Mexican dancers and 
dainty, diving damsels. Among the surprises was Dick Ferris 
and his actress wife, fair Florence Stone. I kissed her on the 
"zone" and squared it with Dick by rubbing my unshaved face 
against his smooth chin. 

A Saturday night and early Sunday morning rounds con- 
vinced us that 'Frisco had much godless territory in addition 
to her Barbary coast. The savages of the South Seas would 
blush at the cabaret dancers we saw at the Black Cat and Spider 
Kelly's. Fair is foul and foul is fair, for 'Frisco flames with 
the scarlet letter that makes her the Red Light district of the 
U. S. Saloons, joints and gambling hells are open six days and 
Sunday too, on the Broad road that leads to death. 

The 'Frisco Fair is the world's eighth wonder, a fitting 
memorial of the Big Ditch I went through in 1914. Comparisons 
are odious. I had seen the Centennial at Philadelphia, the 
Columbia Exposition at Chicago, the World's Fair at St. Louis 
and the Paris Exposition in 1900, and I think for situation, 
splendor and substantial exhibit the Panama Exposition leads 
them all in the best of everything up to the last minute. Let 
Milton sing the praise of the gates of Paradise, I sing the praises 
of Uncle Sam's canal and the Gatun gates that opened a para- 
dise to the ships of the world. This great exhibition is a para- 
phrase of Bishop Heber's lines: 

"Westward the course of Expos take their way. 

The other shows already past, 

The Panama's will close the pageant of the day-^- 

Time's noblest offspring is the last." 

HURRAH FOR U. S. ! 



THE Shasta Limited showed unlimited scenery and its 
Mt. Shasta is a gospel in stone as much as the shastra 
in India is the law of the Hindus. In the morning 
Mt. Lassen puffed up and smoking, seemed to say, 
"Tell the tourist it's unnecessary to visit the South Seas to see 
volcanoes. Look at me. ' ' We settled at Seattle long enough for 



256 AMERICA 

my press friend Hunter to drive us around and view park, 
lake and Olympian range fit for the gods. At Victoria we saw 
the German stores and buildings Canadian rioters had wrecked, 
and went out to Esquimalt to visit the British battleship ' ' Kent. ' ' 
I talked with one of the sailors who described the engagement 
that sunk the "Nurnberg." The Canadian Pacific swung us 
from Vancouver to Glacier, Field, Louise and Banff in the 
Canadian Eockies that make the mountains of New Zealand look 
like foothills. Winnipeg on Sunday was worse than a cemetery 
because the dead ones were not buried, but we took a lively 
trip to Deer Park and later saw the ' ' dear ' ' pile of Capitol rock 
that stands a monument to city graft. 

It was May 30th, our Memorial Day. As the Soo swung 
us across the Canadian border into the little U. S. town of 
Noyes, I made a patriotic noise. I reached Minneapolis next 
day in time to ride horse back in the G. A. E. parade as an 
American citizen and son of a veteran. When I looked at Old 
Glory, that stands for liberty, bravery, honor and duty, and 
listened to ''My Country 'Tis of Thee," my heart beat time, I 
thought the world would yet keep step to the march of American 
civilization, and I repeated Webster's words, "I was born an 
American, I live an American, I shall die an American." 




LL AND BACK" 



By -REY. GOLIGHTLY MORRILL 

One of the Funniest and Most Fearless Books of 
Travel Ever Written 

A PANORAMA OF PERDITION 
from PANAMA TO PATAGONIA 

Unusual Photos — Drawings — 200 Pages 

QUOTED BY PRESS AND MAGAZINES 

SOME OF THE THINGS DESCRIBED: 
The desert cities, high railways and Inca ruins of PERU ; the 
devil dances, degradation of Andean Indians and ruins of world's 
oldest city of BOLIVIA; CHILE'S volcanoes, borax lakes, carnage 
and cruelty ; the Straits of Magellan and Falkland Islands ; the 
races, gambling and profligacy of Buenos Aires and Montevideo, the 
Sodom and Gomorrah of South America ; the rubber atrocities and 
white slave markets of BRAZIL; VENEZUELA'S buUflghts, rev- 
olutions and Pitch lake ; the head-hunters, bigotry and backward- 
ness of ECUADOR and COLOMBIA. 

THE FOREWORD 
"Truth wears no fig-leaf. I intend to tell the naked truth 
about South America. The diplomat dare not, the guest cannot, the 
business boomer will not, the subsidized press and steamship com- 
panies do not, but the preacher who paj-s his own bills can af- 
ford to tell nothing- else." 

A FEW OF THE CHAPTERS: 

An E^icilish Eden, Pizarro's Toion, A Real Bevil, Lima Beans, 
Bully Sport, Curious Cuzco, Religions Rackets, On Lake Titicaca, 
Pious Orgies, A Door of Hell, A Prehistoric Man, A Live Martyr, 
Flirting in Santiago, Chile Con Carnage, The End of the World, 
Wrecks and Whales, Kissers, Buenos Aires Betting, Scene and 
OJ)Scene, Tango Times, Hell's Queen, On the Aviazon, Ballet Beau- 
ties, A7'i Nude and Lewd, Church Advertising, Dives, White Slaves, 
Egret Fiends, "Garamha," The Lady and the Bull, Hell Colombia! 
Smugglers, Ship on Fire, Held Up. 

COVER WITH DESIGN IX RED AND BLACK 

A Bargain— 60c Postpaid— Worth $1.00 
Address G. L MORRILL, 

3356 TENTH AVENUE SOUTH, 
MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA 



HTHE NEW YORK WORLD, one of the world's 
greatest newspapers, devoted a whole page to a 
review and write-up of G.L. Morrill's book, "TO 
HELL AND BACK— MY TRIP TO SOUTH 
AMERICA." It said in part: 

"Rev. Golightly Morrill is an author of repute, ivhose 
previous ivorks include "Golightly 'Round the Globe" 
and "Upper Cuts." His latest volume, "To Hell and 
Back," hound appropriately in black and flaming red, 
is a VIVACIOUS disapproval of South America. It is 
dedicated point-blank to the Devil. There is nothing 
cut and dried, and nothing mealy-mouthed al)out it. 
Theodore Roosevelt and Elihu Root are among the nota- 
bles ivho have recently looked over and variously re- 
ported upon our sister continent, South America. But 
evidently these distinguished tourists missed their op- 
portunities. The Rev. Golightly Morrill has now been 
over the ground. Like another Dante he returns to tell 
the tale — etc., etc." 

This article was illustrated with colored cartoons by 
Gordon Ross, picturing Mr. Morrill 's adventures and 
experiences in Peru, Chile, Falkland Islands, etc. The 
review ended by quoting one hundred lines from differ- 
ent chapters of the book to shov/ their spice, wit and 
wisdom. 



^ 




>i «. 







n 



AN OLD SETTLER 



J 
BOLIVIA 



^ 



*«■ 



mm 



■H 




^^ 




V 




\ 



INDIAN DANCE 



BOLIVIA 




CHURCH ADVERTISING IN RIO 



BRAZIL 




PRIMITIVE PLOUGHING 



-PERU 



Golightly 'Round the Globe 

By REV. GOLIGHTLY MORRILL 

SPICY BREEZES 



From 



Hawaii, Japan, China, Philippines, Java, Burma, 
India, Ceylon, Egypt, Italy, Switzerland, Germany 



200 Pages — Photos — Cartoons 



A Good Book for Bad People 



PRESS COMMENT 

"Easy and Good-Humored." — American Review of Reviews. 
"A Kind of Uncensored Movie." — Chicago Standard. 
"I Am Reading It With Chuckles of Delight."— Elbert Hubhard. 
"A Compound of Snuff and Cayenne Pepper." 

— Benjamin Fay Mills. 



SOME OF THE CHAPTERS: 

A Prize Fight, Noah's ArJc, Rag Dances, Ship-Bored, Sleepv 
Religion, Geisha Girls, The YosMwara, Altogether Baths, 
Making Opium, In Jail, Beastly Benares, My Native Bath, 
Carnal Caves, Captain Cupid, Naughty Naples, Camera Curse, 
Noisome Cologne, The Tipping Habit. 

CLOTH-BOUND, BLUE AND GOLD, $1.00 POSTPAID. 
G. L. Morrill, 3356 10th Ave. S., Minneapolis, Minn. 



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BETROIT 

MILWAUKEE 

MINNEAPOLIS 



Radisson Hotel Building 



^' The neckivear House of 
America" 



Agents for — 

John B. Stetson and 
Dunlap Hats 
Dr. Beimel Linen Mesh 
and Dr. Jaeger's Woolen 
Underwear 

Representing — 

Welch, Margetson Co. Ltd. 
Allen, Sidley & Co. 
Capper, Son S Co. 

of 

London, England 



FOR THOSE WHO WANT THE BEST 




Cleaner and Dyer 

"Nuff Said" 



Hennepin County Savings Bank 

Marquette Ave. and Fourth St. 

RESOURCES OVER $6,000,000.00 

INVITES BUSINESS AND PERSONAL 

CHECKING ACCOUNTS 

4% INTEREST PAID ON SAVINGS 
Compounded Quarterly 

OiUcevs 

W. H. LEE, President W. F. McLANE, Cashier 

DAVID P. JONES, Vice-President H. H. BARBER, Assistant Cashier 
ROGER I. LEE, Assistant Cashier 

OLDEST SAVINGS BANK IN MINNESOTA 



T 



iAMING 



MINNEAPOLIS 



The Largest and Most 
Attractive Apartment 
Hotel in the World 



JEWELERS 

Bargains in Diamonds, 
and Other Gifts. 



[UQigl 



eaamg 



506 NICOLLET AVENUE 
MINNEAPOLIS 



THE VOGUE COMPANY'S NEW STORE 

717-719-721 NICOLLET AVENUE, 

MINNEAPOLIS, MINN. 

MAKE YOUR HOME 

at the New Vogue store. You will be repaid by the most 
interesting exhibit of new fashions courteously shown and 
offered at prices consistent with quality. The Vogue pro- 
ductions are noted for authoritative style, for grace and 
beauty of design and for the mark of distinction always 
present whether in garments moderately priced or the most 
costly Parisian creations and adaptations. 




Edison 's 



Triumph , 
Music Thru 
a Real Dia- 




6 12 NICOLLET 

MINNEAPOLIS, : : 



AVENUE 



>nNN. 



OTEL DYCKMAN 

Minneapolis' Finest Hotel 

6th ST., NEAR NICOLLET 
326 Rooms All With Private Bath 

Three Dining Rooms Where 
Over 1200 Dine Every Day 



Home of the Wonderful Electric Pipe Organ 

Rates $1.50 to $5.00 Per Day 

H. J. Tremain 



OS. 



WEDDING RINGS 

"Hoop 'er up — lie's a ringer" 

29 So, Sth Street, Minneapolis 



BANK WITH A GROWING BANK 



Ample capital and surplus, together with, effi- 
cient officers and directors, place this institution 
in a position to handle accounts of individuals, 
firms and corporations on a most satisfactory 
basis. 

You are cordially invited to take up your busi- 
ness affairs with the officers of this bank and join 
the constantly increasing number of depositors 
who are sharing in its personal and efficient 
service. 

Officers 

W. B. TSCHARNER, President 

L.. S. SWENSON, Vice President 
M. C. TIFFT, Vice President 

WILLIAM F. OLSEN, Cashier 

THE BANK OF PERSONAL SERVICE 



Located in the traffic center 
HENNEPIN AVENUE AT SIXTH STREET 

MERCANTILE STATE BANK 



501 Marquette Ave., Minneapolis 

STEAMSHIP TICKETS VIA ALL LINES 
TO ALL PARTS OF THE WORLD 

When Planning a Trip by Water, 'Phone 

CHANDLER 

N. W. NICOLLET 1548 T. S. CENTER 784 



THE PHEASANT ROOM 

WEST HOTEL 

The Newest and Most Popular Cafe in 

MINNEAPOLIS 




^AQ-ft 



^orirts firanlk (Elotlffa 



WeWe at 
Your Service 

^ Smart clothes and 
fixings. 

II For young men and 
men who stay young. 

TI Makers of advertis- 
ing and automobile 
PENNANTS 



THOEN BROTHERS 

32-34-36 South Sixth Street 

MINNEAPOLIS 




Iiocolate 

99 



"At Home.'' — Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, 

Thursday, Friday and Saturday : : 

8:00 A, M. TO 11:30 P. M. 



'Smith's-on-NicoUet' 
Minneapolis 



J. 



ge 



'Smith's -on -Six til' 
St. Paul 



WE CAN WRITE, COMPILE AND PRINT YOUR 

CATALOG, BOOKLET OR ADVERTISING 

MATTER OF ANY DESCRIPTION 

IN A MANNER THAT 

WILL BRING 

RESULTS. 

TIE PlMEEi F^IITEi' 



CATALOG, CALENDAR, AND 
COMMERCIAL PRINTERS 
W II K N W HO W 

306-308 Sixth Street South 
Minneapolis, Minn. 




«*( 



»♦♦ 



The "Reflex" trade-mark 
in the above package is 
your protection and rep- 
resents the best possible 
value in Incandescent Gas 
Manties either Upright or 
Inverted for the price asked. 



These mantles give full 
illumination from the gas 
consumed in a clear, uni- 
form, mellov/ light, undim- 
ished in quality during 
their entire life which 
greatly exceeds that of 
any ordinary mantle. 



At the former price of 25 <; mil- 
lions of these Mantles have 
been bought as the best value 
on the market for the money. 
With the quality better than 
ever, the price has now t>een 
reduced to 1 g^- 

MINNEAPOLIS GAS LIGHT CO. 



TAYLOR & WATS 



Wall Paper, Painting and Decorating 

45 Eighth Street South 

Established 1879 

Minneapolis, .... Minnesota 



L. M. DAVIS 

1 1 4 South Eighth St., 

MINNEAPOLIS, - - - MINN. 
IMPORTER OF WHITE CHINA 

MATERIALS AND STUDIES 

BELLEEK CHINA 

FIRING ."\[ ENDING DECORATING 

LESSONS BANDING GLASS RIVETING 

CHINA COLORS 

Agent for Hasburg's Phoenix Gold, Keramic Studio Publications, 
Celebrated Revelation China Kilns 



HATS TO GO WITH YOXJE SUIT 



Where Fashion ReigBs 

Is Now Located at 516 Nicollet 

tfThe Lady with extremely good taste and not extravagant 
purse will find at Pearce's just what she wants in: 



Dresses at $10.00 to $50.00 
Blouses at ^2.00 to $15.00 



Suits at $15.00 to $50.00 
Coats at $10.00 to $50.00 



EVERY DAY SOMETHING NEW 

MINNEAPOLIS 




liter? 



Nearly everybody from the Twin Cities going- to California 
goes via the through car service of the Chicago GREAT Western. 

^Why? Because the Chicago GREAT Western's route is 
straight through a country still as interesting and romantic in 
many ways as when first seen by Spanish explorers hundreds of 
years ago. 

Don't forget through sleepers from the Twin Cities direct to 
California and only three days on the way. Call on me for full 
information. Our office is very convenient if you're downtown, 
and when you are at home, 

YOUR TELEPHONE IS HANDY 



CHAS. D, FISIIEI 

Phones : 



I, A. G. P. A. C. C. JOHNSOK, C. P. & T. A. 

N. W. Main 3080; T. S. Center 262 
MINNEAPOLIS 




(mMit ^iViWt ir 11 



ALL MAGAZINES ARE 

THE SAME—! 
BUT NOT THE FRA!! 

iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiy^^ 

THE "Popular" Magazines buy their Covers from the same 
Artists and their Contributions from the same Contrib- 
utors ! The Editor is a "Hired Man," with a Hired Man's 
Freedom of Speech; and the Policy of the Publication is dictated 
by the Board of Directors. 'Tis true, 'tis true 'tis pity; and pity 
'tis 'tis true. 

H THE FRA — Why bless you — we say what's on our chests to say 
and it's something that starts something ! We make a good many 
Friends, some "Enemies" — manage to get more Subscriptions than 
Cancellations— encourage those Writers who can Think outside 
the Rut—print a Magazine that is called, "the most beautiful 
Magazine in America" — are not afraid of a New Word or a New 
Idea! Knock when it is needed, and Boost with just as much En- 
thusiasm — and are way beyond the influences of any Individual, 
Class or Condition. 

U It's Free Speech in Alagazine Form — that's what it is ! 

If If you are NOT a Subscriber to THE FRA j^ou should be ! — 
We'll send you this individual, intelligent, go-ahead Magazine for 
a 3'ear — also a beautiful Roycroft Book, gratis — for Two Dollars. 

H If you ARE a Subscriber — you have some Good Friend who 
will benefit by TFIE FRA — why not subscribe for him or her? 
You get the Roycroft Book just the same. Or, we will send it to 
your Friend, as you direct ! 
TI Please let us hear from you. 

Illlllllllllllllllllllllllllllilllllllllllllllliillllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll^ 




T. V. MORE A U CO. 




OPTICIANS AND KODAK DEALERS 
616 Nicollet Ave. .... Minneapolis 



The J. H. Johnson Undertaking Co. 

Formerly of The Johnson-Landis Co. and Vail & Johnson 

ESTABLISHED 1867 
1900 HENNEPIN AVENUE, MINNEAPOLIS 




Our Xew Honip was formei'ly a private residence anrl tliis idea will be iimiu- 
taiiied. WE ARE FULLY EQUIPPED to give greatly Improved Service for 
I'nlilic or Private Finierals. Anto Service. 

TELEPHONES: 

OFFICE: N. W. KENWOOD 104 TRI-STATE CALHOUN 2944 

RISIDENCE: N, W. KEN. 73 

We are not connected with any other firm of similar name 




IF YOU ARE A SINNER GO TO YOUR BIBLE 
IF YOU ARE SICK GO TO A DOCTOR 
IF YOUR AUTO ACTS "BAD," OR YOU 
WANT A GOOD MACHINE, GO TO 

Pence Automobile Co. 




800-804 HENN. AVE. 

Tri-State Center 1335 N. W. Main 1589 

MINNEAPOLIS 



CAFE Mccormick 



18-20 




5th St 
So. 



PRANK Mccormick, Prop. 



Restaurant de Luxe 



Where Business Men Meet 
for Luncheon 



SPECIAL BANQUET ROOMS FOR LARGE PARTIES 



R. H. HEGENER 

BARBERS' FURNITURE 
AND SUPPLIES 

A Full liine of Carvers, Table Cut- 
lery, Pocket Cutlery and Toilet Ar- 
ticles, Manicure Scissors and Tools. 

207 Nicollet Avenue, 
MINNEAPOLIS 




The Half-Tones and Engravings of G. L. Morrill's 
Original Photographs Illustrating Hip Recent Books of 
Travel, '^Golightly 'Round the Globe," "To Hell and 
Back — My Trip to South America," and "South Sea 
Silhouettes," Were Made by the 






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___— _^^^^^^^^^^^^ ^ 



BUREAU iHGRAVING 



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Extra Deep Etched 
Levy Acid Blast Cuts in 
One or More Colors. 



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IS 

fill 




OUR LOW PRICES ON GOOD 
FURNITURE, RUGS AND 
STOVES MAKE IT WELL 
WORTH YOUR COMING TO 
TO THIS NEW STORE 

SECOND AVE. SO. AND 
SIXTH ST. 

MINNEAPOLIS 



THE JITNEY 

(FORMERLY BIJOU) 
Minneapolis' Largest Movie Theatre 

Producing all the Best Features 

Chaplin Comedies 
SPECIAL MUSIC PROGRAM 
FOR EACH PRODUCTION 

ADMISSION 5 CENTS — NO HIGHER 



A. M. SMITH 

ti .■■■I— ■■ 1 1 ■ I ■■■—.■■■ iiii^j 

DELICATESSEN 

Finest Imported Olive Oil, Cheese, 
Meat and Fish 

Tri-State Center 235 N. W. Main 235 

249 Hennepin Avenue 

Minneapolis 



You Can't Beat 

THE DUTCH ROOM 

For Menu, Music and 
Merriment 



Pipe Organ Recitals 

Special Orchestral Features 



SECOND AVENUE SOUTH AND WASHINGTON 

MINNEAPOLIS 



^nttrtoiaiHilBaBiliiaiii 



Paper Boxes, Envelopes and 
Printing 

HEYWOOD 

MANUFACTURING CO. 



420 to 428 Third St No. 
Minneapolis - - Minn. 



Cafe Gruenewald 

(German Restaurant) 

"SERVES THE BEST ONLY" 

Ti TTTTPTJIVT AM f^r% 24 and 26 South 6th St., 

n. Lv\un.mAiy \uU, Minneapolis. 




Not Sometimes, But All Times 
And in All Departments 



and Mlssea' 
Dresses, Skirts 



Women's 
Coats, 

Furs 

Millinery 

Waists 

Muslin Underwear 

Corsets 

Negligees 

Women's and Children's 
Shoes 

Men's and Boys' Shoes 

Men's and Boys' Clothing 

Men's and Boys' Hats 

Men's Furnishings, Un- 
derwear and Hosiery 

Umbrellas 

Women's and Children's 
Underwear and Hosiery 

Gloves 

Neckwear 

Handkerchiefs 

Ribbons 

Embroideries 

Laces and Veilings 

Trimmings 



Notions 

Leather Goods 

Jewelry, Fans, Frames, 
Clocks 

Stationery 

Toilets, Perfumery, Drugs 

Books 

Art Goods 

Silk and Velvets 

Black Dress Goods 

Colored Dress Goods 

Linings 

Wash Dress Goods 

White Goods 

Flannels 

Patterns 

Infants' Wear 

Toys 

Baby Carriages 

Linens 

Domestics 

Blankets and Comforta- 
bles 

Furniture and Pictures 

Rugs and Carpets, and 
Linoleum 



Sewing Machines 

Lace Curtains and Up- 
holstery 

Silverware and Cut Glass 

Wall Paper 

Bric-a-brac, Lamps and 
Glassware 

China and Crockery 

House Furnishings and 
Paints 

Trimks and Bags 

Vietrolas 

Kodaks 

Groceries, Bakeshop, 
Candy 

Meats, Fruits, Vegetables 

Restaurant, Soda Foun- 
tain 

Flowers, Plants, Seeds 

Cigars and Tobacco 

Optical Goods and Glasses 

Sheet Music 

Hair Goods and Mani- 
curing 



POWERS 



Nicollet ave.; Fifth st.; Marquette ave.: MINNEAPOLIS 



